


Perdix

by Br4v3b1rd (Les)



Category: Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Genre: Gen, Postgame: Sarif Ending, Team Sarif
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-07
Updated: 2014-12-02
Packaged: 2018-01-11 11:04:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 24,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1172278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Les/pseuds/Br4v3b1rd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Pritchard disappears off the grid when he’s supposed to be picking up a motorcycle from the repair shop, things can only go south for Team Sarif as they look for their missing technician.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story has been one of the most interesting things I've worked on, as it's been an idea in the back of my head since I'd finished DX:HR last year. It's been posted to my writing tumblr for months, but I'm finally uploading it here so I remember to get the next chapter finished.

The coffee grew cold on the wooden table top, the blue mug untouched as the hand next to it tapped out a rhythm against the table.

“We need to pick up the bike.” Faridah mentioned, her early morning companion sits across from her, his head to the table, the orange mug gripped so tight in his hand that his knuckles were white. 

“I’m not going out today. Can’t you pick it up on your way to work?” He mutters, his eyes half closed.

“No, Frank, I can’t. The shop doesn’t open for another two hours and I’m leaving in about thirty minutes.” Faridah resisted the urge to do an over-dramatic sigh. Pritchard was going to be pain in the neck, this Sunday, wasn’t he.

“Then get it on your way back?” He suggested, lifting his head up for a few seconds before deciding it was too much work to bother and dropping back to his position on the table.

“Oh, come on, you still owe me for the last time I kept Sarif off your back, Frank.” Faridah said, her fingers still tapping as she leaned back in one of the dining chairs.

“He charges us more when I pick the bike up, Malik. Seriously, it’s easier when you do it. We save money. Then we don’t have to scrimp on food to make enough to buy neuropozyne.” He was practically whining at this point. Faridah debated dumping her coffee on his head. It’d feel so nice to do, but wouldn’t get them anywhere. It was such a different start then their usual Sundays, which were more of the ‘avoid each other until one of us shows up to the other’s place with takeout, alcohol, and a bad movie’ style. 

She bit the inside of her cheek. “Frank, seriously, he makes me uncomfortable. He stares at me with this creepy smile and if it wasn’t for the fact that he’s the only good mechanic in the area who’s cheap enough, I’d smack him across the face and never go back.” She said and picked up her mug. She sipped it and grimaced at the cold coffee but continued to drink it.

He sat up and leaned back in the chair. “Fine, I’ll do it.” He paused for a second, then leaned forward. “In exchange, would you go buy me a new bag of coffee to leave in my desk at work. A certain somebody has stolen it. Again.” He huffed in irritation as he loosened his grip on the coffee cup.

Faridah laughed. “Deal.” She said before leaning forward to match Francis. “And why have you not gotten a padlock for your desk drawers?” She places down her coffee cup to wiggle her finger in his face. “You know that our darling spyboy has the stickiest fingers in the company when it comes to food. Or viruses. Or anything, really.” 

He huffed and pouted before leaning back again, tilting the chair. “He’d just cut the locks off with his blades. That, or he’d buy a lockpick kit.”

Faridah bites back her laughter. “He leaves things alone when they’re locked. I had to do that for some of my cyberboost bars, and they’re untouched. Helps that I leave one out for him, obviously.”

“Yeah, well, that’s other people. You know he’ll just walk off with my stuff just to piss me off.” He said. 

“You two and your petty war. You’d think that you two hanging out and attempting to be civil would alleviate some of this, but noooooo.” She smiled, however. They’d grown pretty close as a group since Panchaea, but some things never really changed. 

“Yeah, yeah.” He mimed the motion of talking with his right hand then looked at the clock behind her. “You better get going, unless you plan to call in sick.”

She pushed back the chair. “I’ll catch the bus and then I’ll pick up your coffee on the way back. When you leave, lock my door.” She turns to leave and pauses. “Oh, and for the love of god, wash your cup.”

“Whatever, I know the routine, Malik. I’m not a five year old.”

“Your actions sometimes speak differently.” She snickers as he shoots her a dark look.

He waved her out, “Get going, flygirl. You’re going to miss your bus.”

When the door closed, Pritchard leaned back even more, and brought the cup up to his lips.

Then his chair tipped over.

“Fuck!” Thankfully, the coffee was cold.

It was about an hour later when he’d cleaned up the floor of Malik’s kitchen, washed the mug, and gone back to his apartment to wash the coffee out of his hair.  
He figured it’d take him about an hour to walk get the credits and to the mechanic’s shop. It’d be easier to just pay and get it right as they opened up. No wait, no irritating people to wait behind, and he could get home quickly and spend the rest of the day sleeping or something else productive. Maybe write.

The elevator was empty when he called it up to his floor, but around the sixth floor, he squeezed himself into the corner as that irritating large family shuffled in. He tried to remember their name. Mccoy? No, wait that was that Star Trek character. Mc… Mc something. He shook his head as he tried to block out the excited jabber of the little kids.  
He scowled and started to shift uncomfortably, shoving his hands into his pockets. He should have just taken the stairs.  
When they finally reached the ground floor, he stood back after exiting the elevator and fumbled through his pockets before finding the old mp3 player he somehow still kept around, earbuds attached. 

If he was going to walk to the bank, he might as well block out the noise of the streets.

It was a decent day, for Detroit. The music blared in his ears as he walked down the street, before he noticed the car accident up ahead.

That threw a chink in the plan. He glanced around. Well, there was the short cut through the side streets he could take. He thought for a second, then turned into the side street. It was oddly empty for once, but he thought nothing of it.

Until Pritchard felt something hit his neck and lower back and he dropped to the ground, his earbuds dislodging. He couldn’t move, the pain was so great he couldn’t even scream.

“He looks healthy enough. Doubt anyone would miss him, looks like a loner. Give me the syringe and we can leave.” 

“Where’s this fucker’s vein, I swear?” 

“How high is the dose?”

“High enough, he looks like a lightweight. This should knock him right out.”  
The pain stopped, but he’d been pinned down immediately and felt a needle press into his neck. It was warm, and soon he was out.

Malik knocked on the door to Pritchard’s apartment. “Hey, jerkbutt! I bought your coffee, you better have gone and gotten the bike. Or I’ll just keep your coffee for myself.” She stood there, grocery bag in hand.

She frowned as there was no answer. Time to try the infolink. Hopefully he was just out doing something. 

Static.

She went back to her apartment. Time to retrieve her extra key. Hopefully he hadn’t finally fulfilled that worry of hers, of tripping over some bundle of wires and knocking himself out. 

She placed the bag on her kitchen and dug through the closest drawer in the kitchen. Bike keys, valet keys, old car keys, that weird thing her mom gave her, after turning the drawer inside and out, she found them on a small black lanyard in the back, underneath an envelope with a credit chip in it.

She quickly ran over to Pritchard’s door and put the key in the doorknob, along with the access code. It was the only way to get into his apartment. Someone had to have both key and code to get in.

“Francis? You okay?” She called out as she entered his apartment. Despite the fact it was a mirror image of her own place, it was darker due to the blackout curtains he kept up to keep the light out when needed, and a hell of a lot messier, cables and discarded electronics on most surfaces. 

There was no response. She bit the inside of her cheek as she walked carefully through the mess of wires and other devices.

He wasn’t there, his infolink wasn’t on, and she doubted he had his phone with him, as she could see the screen of it, sitting on his unmade bed.

She flicked the infolink on again. “Jensen? I need help. I can’t find Frank and his infolink isn’t on.” 

“His infolink isn’t on? Are you sure he isn’t asleep or finally tripped over all those cords he has?” There's a hidden concern in his voice, masked by a jab at the hacker. Francis wasn't one to just disappear like this. 

“Adam! I’m sure he isn’t fucking asleep. I’m in his goddamn apartment and he isn’t here.” She said, her voice rising.

“Give me a second then, I’ll see if I can call up his GPL signal.” 

She let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding in. “Thanks.”

“Don’t thank me yet.” There was what suspiciously sounded like a muttered “fuck” then he started. “His GPL isn’t active. The last time it was pinged about 10 hours ago, in the side streets of Detroit.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah, shit.” He agreed. “I’m going to go check the place out.”

"Good. I’m going to see if the motorbike was ever picked up." The infolink shuts off and Malik felt alone in the darkened apartment.


	2. Chapter 2

At dark, the side street buzzed with its usual form of life. Unnoticed, Adam slipped through the crowds of people going home from work into the overgrown alley and walked towards his destination. The population would glance occasionally at him, a strange sight to see even here, as he checked out the area that was the last place they had any record of Pritchard even being. He activated his shades and got to work, checking the area out.

It wasn’t even that special. Wasn’t a closed off alley, a covered area, or any sort of place where one could attack someone without being noticed. In the daylight, this area could easily be seen by anyone who was in the side street to begin with. He scuffed at the ground with the toe of his boot in frustration. This place had people in it all times of the day. 

There would be no reason to fight someone and take them down here and not be seen. He hadn’t even heard latent gossip swapped between the usual crowd about some strange sort of fight going on earlier in the day. 

The ground didn’t have any blood on it, even as he scuffed at the ground, it was easy to see that it was as dry as can be. That, at least, ruled out the technician being shot and the GPL disabled as they took his body for god knows what. 

Why the would anyone would even think to kidnapped Pritchard was a vague thought in his head as he kneeled down to sift through the disturbed litter at the wall. He didn’t even know what he’d think he could find. There was a glint of orange he brushed past before he pulled it out. An old, worn MP3 player with a cracked screen and what was once the cord to a pair of either headphone or earbuds dangling to the bottom, the jack still in. 

It seemed familiar as he got the screen to flicker to life. It told him to charge it before it faded back to black. 

He activated the infolink and called up Faridah’s frequency. 

“Hey, Malik. Did Pritchard ever own some sort of old Mp3 player?” He asked once the call picked up.

There was a sharp intake of breath. “What color?” She asked in return.

“Orange.” He turned it over in his hands. It was well used, certainly, but the major scratches on it were all fresh looking. There was an unreadable engraving on the back. He brushed his thumb over it and brushed the dirt off. 

“It’s his. Oh god. He probably had it playing when whatever happened happened. He’d be really oblivious with it on.” She paused and took a breath. “So he’d be a prime target for someone to follow to take down.”

He pocketed the device and contained to push through the liter. There was a syringe but he pushed it aside. Everything else was just trash. “Did you find out anything?” Adam asked as he stood up and started to walk away. 

“Well, the bike never got picked up, which makes sense given the timeframe of when Frank’s GPL disappeared. It happened about the time that the shop opened. I’m going to pay for the repairs and get out of here. Want me to meet you at the street? I’ll give you a ride home.”

“That’d be good. I want to ask around, see if anyone saw something, so contact me when you get here.”

“You got it, Jensen.” The infolink clicked off and he glanced around in the artificial light. It’d be best to start with the folk who typically were there all day, and so he approached a man sitting on the side of the court, his sleeping bag under him. 

“Excuse me, but have you seen anything strange going on this morning?” He asked, his hand already fishing for a credit chip in his pocket in the case he had to pay for information. 

“Depends on what’s asking?” The man replied and Adam pulled the white and black card out of his pocket.

“A curious person.” He handed over the card.

The man snorted. “More like a curious robot, but money is money. Everyone got up and scared around eight to nine this morning. There was news that the police were gonna show up for a surprise search, or a gang lord was coming down for revenge on some poor sap, or other things that chased people into their hiding holes. I was one of the last to leave, and this place was deserted this morning. Around fourish, everyone started to return as we all figured out it was some sort of hoax. Even Grayson was scared from what I’ve heard.” He said.

“So no one would be here around ten to eleven.”

“That’s the truth there.” The man stuffed the credit chip into the pockets of an undershirt. “Now, I’ve told you what I know, so get out of my face, you hanzer.” 

Adam walked away and mulled over the info. The guy could be lying. So he approached more people, sometimes the info was given freely, sometimes he had to loosen their lips with credits. Everything was the same. Some sort of rumor was given and spread around so that people were gone from the side street in the morning, then they shifted back in as they figured out the rumors were false.

The infolink crackled to life when he was leaving a young punk girl with a hand augment who’d told him that some guy had said a neuropozyne dealer was coming down here with a grudge against some people and she’d gotten up and left.

“Hey Jensen, ready to go?” Faridah asked. He could see her sitting on a black motorcycle, her arm waving him over. 

He clicked the infolink off and approached the bike. “Yeah, found out some interesting things about this morning. Let’s go back to Sarif Industries. I need to ask what would disable the GPL signal.”

“Got it.” She grinned and handed him a helmet. “You might want this. Just warning you, this might be more terrifying then you think.”

He rolled his eyes and put it on. “Let’s get going.” He said as he got on behind her. 

The yelling of “Jesus Christ! Slow down, Malik you almost hit a fucking police car!” and other various phrases of alarm by Jensen were accented by laughter from Faridah.

“I told you this might be more terrifying then you think!” She yelled back to him as he tightened his grip slightly.

“I didn’t think you drove like this!” He shouted back.

“Years driving in Hengsha would do this to you. Best way to get around is to go through just exactly where you can drive through without hitting things!” She laughed again and slowed down as they approached the underground parking for Sarif Industries. 

“I can see why it was in the shop to begin with.” He muttered as she drove to a marked out spot. 

“What was that, spyboy?” She asked, an insulted tinge to her words as she parked.

“Nothing.”

“That’s what I thought.” They dismounted and Malik grinned as she took the other helmet out of Adam’s hand. “So, what’d you think?”

He gave her a serious look. “Never again.” He said.

She laughed. “That’s what Frank said the first…” She frowned and paused, “the first time he rode with me driving.”

Adam sighed and put a hand on her shoulder. “We’ll find him.” 

She nodded and they silently walked to the elevator, Faridah holding both helmets by the strap on her right arm as they got on.

Adam pulled the MP3 player out of his pocket and passed it over. “This is what I found.”

She took it in her left and raised her right to touch it, the helmets banging against each other. “It’s worse for wear now, but it’s his. I never got the story behind it out of him, but he took good care of such an old electronic. I always thought it was something he was given by someone he loved with the way he would replace parts of it.” She looked at Jensen as she passed it back. “He was pretty cautious with it, so I’d bet it fell out of his pocket if he was pushed to the ground or something. Don’t know about the crack in it though.”

Adam turned it over in his hand. “It was pushed to the side when I found it, so it could have been stepped on or kicked aside afterwards. Still works, just needs to be charged.” 

“So, what’d you find out from people?” She asked as they walked to Adam’s office.

“Apparently, someone or some group spread rumors around to chase people out of the area, so I assume it was they could attack someone in what was pretty much an open area without anyone seeing. Pritchard probably wasn’t shot, or if he was, they made sure he didn’t bleed on the ground. The dirt was dry and dusty.”

Faridah sighed. “Well, if he’d just been killed, they wouldn’t have had a reason to disable his GPL or even assume he had one. That’s what confuses me. I wonder if it was someone who he’s pissed off recently.”

Adam shrugged and opened the door to his office and walked in. “They might just be trying to blackmail Sarif or get info out of Pritchard without having us find him. Or it could just be that they’re hiding something else and whatever they’re using blocks out the GPL as well.”

“That could be true. It’s just still really bizarre. Reminds me of when the attack happened.”

He nodded in agreement. “I see what you mean. I’m more concerned with the fact that they got him down without him screaming or yelling in surprise. Even with the side streets empty someone would have heard if he had.” At the most, some person would have run over and seen what had happened or at least mentioned hearing something.

“What about a taser? Would that immobilize him enough to not scream?” She brushed the hair back from her face.

He thought for a second. “Yeah, but they’d have to have some other way to incapacitate him once they turn it off.” There was only so long they could use a taser on someone before it stopped.

“What, like a tranquilizer? Or would they have just punched him out?” She questioned again, leaning against the desk.

“Tranquilizer would be more likely. Punching would probably have left some sort blood on the ground or it wouldn’t have worked and he would have called out. Besides, Pritchard’s a stick so it’d take rather quickly if they knew where to jab it. Faster and more efficient then punching him into unconsciousness.”

“So, it’d be likely that they lured him in, took him down with a taser, tranquilized him, then drug him off to god knows where, deactivating the GPL along the way.”

Adam gave her a quizzical look.”I don’t think they’d need to lure him in. If anything, it might have been a random attack as well. They wouldn’t go so far to spread rumors for someone who might not even show up. He might have just been in the wrong place in the wrong time. Turned for a short cut and ended up in a predicament.” He said as he went behind his desk and pulled open a drawer.

“Well, I’m going to ask Hannah to see if his GPL was just put to a lower frequency like they were six months ago.” Malik said and started to the door.

“Hannah?” He asked, holding a cyberboost bar.

Malik sighed. “Hannah’s one of the other techs in cyber security. Pritchard gets her to do some of the more routine work that takes up too much time for him. She’s really good.”

“Well, tell me if you guys discover anything. I’m going to research GPL jammers.”


	3. Chapter 3

Pritchard slowly blinked as he tried to put the world back into focus. Everything was blurred and doubled as he started to wake up. His mouth felt like it had been lined with cotton and the world tasted sterile as he breathed in. Felt like a hospital, or the labs back at Sarif Industries. He closed his eyes as the world kept spinning and turned over onto his stomach. Everything ached and while he had no clue where he was at the moment, or what had happened, all he wanted to do was go back to sleep.

Footsteps passed by at a steady pace, disappeared, and came back as he drifted in and out of a dreamless, timeless stupor. Then there was a bang from his left as a new set of footsteps started to pass by, startling him out of his stupor, but Frank stayed still, eyes closed.

“I’ve done nothing wrong!” The voice was loud and shrill against his ears. “Why the hell am I here?! I want to know!” The footsteps halted as the person started to bang on something harder.

“Shut your mouth, girl! Or I’ll shut it for you!” 

“I will NOT shut up!” This was punctuated by more banging. “This is a violation of my rights! I want du-” The voice was broken off by the sound of a door opening. There was silence for a second, then a scream. Someone hit the floor with a thunk, and the door opened again. The footsteps proceeded down their normal path as the door closed with a swish.

It took a few seconds, but a new voice entered. “Is she alright?” They said.

“She got prodded, Miss. She’ll be fine in a few minutes.” A deeper voice replied.

“Sh-shut up, old man.” The first voice is shaky and weaker then they had been previously. “I’m fine.” They take a loud breath. “Did the guy next to me get taken while I was sleeping or something? He’d taken to helping me shout at them, makes punishment harder to give to us.” Their voice is steadier by the end.

The third voice responds. “Yep. New guy got put in the cell next to you. Hasn’t responded yet, seems pretty drugged up still.”

“You sure the kid ain’t dead, old man?”

This time the second voice piped up. “I saw him turn over. I’m pretty sure he isn’t dead.”

“And what do you know?” The first voice said in annoyance. “You look like you’re 12.”

“I’m twenty-two, thank you very much. And I’ve been locked up here longer then you.” There was anger in the second voice’s words. “They did have a dead guy brought in once. They put him in your cell, and he was found dead by the next patrol.” The voices faded out as Pritchard fell back into a dreamless sleep.

He was next awoken by a scream from the next cell over.

“Get your hands off of me!” Came the shrill shriek before it went quiet. He barely sat up in time to catch sight of a woman in blue scrubs following the tail end of a gurney, checking something off on a tablet.

Whatever doors they went through made a swish as they closed, and then the room was deathly silent again. He fought the urge to cough or make any sort of noise to break it. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see two people in orange scrubs in cells across from his, each laying on a cot.

He took a steadying breath and tried to figure out where he was. One of those voices called them cells, and it was an apt description. The cell he was in was a clinical white, everything but the sheet of the cot he sat on was white. He bit his cheek and estimated that it was a about three feet across by five feet to the back, where a small half wall blocked what he assumed was a toilet. The glass door showed him the other two cells and the hall between them. There were lumps that he could see which he figured were the two other people he’d heard talking.

How he’d ended up here was the next big question. He bit as he cheek as he thought back. He’d been going to get the bike, per Malik’s request, then he decided to take a side street due to an accident.

Oh. Francis could taste blood in his mouth as he recalled being pinned and the shot. They brought him here for storage until they needed him for whatever the hell they were doing. He’d end up like the person next door, he guessed. They’d sounded like they’d been knocked out due to the sudden quite vs their yelling capacity, the loaded up and taken away. 

He turned on his infolink and started to test the frequencies. Jensen’s was static, Malik’s was static, Sarif’s was static. Pritchard flicked through random channels quickly, the moment he heard static, he went to the next in rapid succession.

As panic set in, he stopped and swallowed. There wasn’t any way out for him. They’d taken his stuff, taken away any form of contact. He was honestly and truly screwed. He couldn’t fight his way out. Various ideas filtered through, but all of them required either strength or tech he didn’t have on him.

There was a tapping that broke the silence. “Hey, new guy. You okay?” It was the second voice he’d heard, and he turned to face the person. They gave him a sad smile as he glanced over. She was tall, dark, and thin, with a nice smile. That was as much as he could tell from the distance they were at. She was dressed in the same orange scrubs that he was, behind a glass door. “We were starting to wonder if they had killed you on accident. It’s good to see you up.”

He considered this for a second. “I’m wondering if being dead might be better.” 

She laughed, a high pitched ha before she frowned and nodded. “I’ve spent a while thinking the same thing.” She admitted. “This place is hell. We don’t get much food or water, time is meaningless, and once you’re drug out of your cage… well, me and Carlos over here think they kill you, strip you of body parts. No one ever comes back, and we track days by the people who get taken. We’ve been here awhile. It could be that we’re quiet, could be the people here are awful, but somehow we’ve lived longer then most.”

“So,” Francis starts, “I’m pretty much fucked, aren’t I?” He felt no urge to be snarky towards the woman. They were all completely screw anyway. Might be nice not to make an enemy of someone for once.

She nods. “Couple tips, newbie. Stay quiet. Even besides me and the old man, the quite ones last longer. Conserve what water you get. The food is pretty inedible anyway, but the water is a plastic bottle. And hopefully, the next person will be put into the cell next to you and taken before you.” She takes a breath. “Anyway, now that that’s out of the way, what’s your name? The last girl never told me hers. She wanted to be all secret I guess.”

“It’s…” He hesitated. There was discrepancy between the three names he ended up being called. “It’s Frank.” Well, if he was going to have someone remember his name he’d rather it be the one he liked being called.

“I’m Kay. I would have rather met you somewhere else, Frank. As I’ve said earlier, the guy in the cell next to me is Carlos.” She gestures to her right. There was the faint sound of footsteps, and they both turned to where they were coming from. Kay brought a finger to her lip and moved back to her cot.

Francis laid down and feigned sleep as the footsteps passed by. There was a door opening and closing and then they left.

Kay tapped on her glass again. “Well, Frank. You might just end up like us. New boy in the next cell to you.”

There wasn’t much communication for the rest of the so called ‘day’ which begun with the removal of the person he still had dubbed as ‘Voice One’ and ended with the loud yelling of the new guy as he tried to fight a guard and paid dearly for it, being dragged onto the gurney, and again, the girl in blue scrubs followed.

The ‘days’ continued in silence for Frank. He listened into Kay and Carlos talking quietly a few times, but blanked it out as he mainly fiddled with the infolink and tried to ignore his dry mouth or the hunger. He’d taken Kay’s ‘stay quiet’ advice to heart. 

Then, after one removal, they never added a new person to the cell next to him. While they said nothing, the three of them glanced at the others that were in their site.  
One of them was next.

It was Carlos who was taken away, in the end. Kay had muttered something then curled into a sitting ball on her cot. Frank had never talked to the man personally, but the panicked feeling in his gut only increased with his removal.

It was ages before guards returned, and surprisingly, it involved two trays of food, one put in each cell.

He considered using the tray to beat the guard over the head with. They, however, were helmeted and he could see the taser in a holster. He held back the urge and just ate what he was given. Which was pretty much something tasteless he figured was chicken, a roll, and raw carrots. No utensils, just the tray, the food, and a sixteen ounce bottle of water, which he opens and takes a sip.

Kay tapped on her door when the guards left. “Remember…” She said.

“Conserve water, I know.” His voice was rough from the silence.

“Good.” She capped her own bottle and stuck it under her cot. “Anyway, Frank… since we’re probably going to die anyway, did you have any sort of dream?”

“Well right now, my main ‘dream.’” He put stress of the dream bit, “Is to get out of here, but we both know that isn’t going to happen.”

She makes an annoyed noise in the back of her throat. “I mean goal! What you wanted to do. I was working at a LiMB internship back in Detroit… then once I got some time off, this happened. I bet they think I ditched it.” She sighs and looks at her hands, shifting back and forth. “I worked my ass off for that internship too.”

“I had what you’d pretty much call my dream job. Worked as cyber security at Sarif Industries. I guess I did leave a some writing I wanted to get published behind though.” It was strange, being more open to a stranger then he’d been to others in years.

“You lived in Detroit too, huh? Guess they hit the city once in a while since it’s so big and people go missing all the time. No one would really miss us.”  
They go silent.

It wasn’t until there are footsteps and they look at each other with worry that they even bothered to move.

He tensed as the pale girl in scrubs looked between the two cells, her tablet pen turning between her fingers. Time seemed to slow as she stood there.

Things snap back into action as she pointed at Frank. His heartbeat pounds in his ears. He’s fucked either way, might as well try to fight out of it.

The guards open the door and he tenses more, standing near the back. One grabs him and he drops down in an attempt to get the guard off balance.

Instead, he ends up with the probes of the other’s taser in his neck and arm. As the current ran through his body, he dropped to the ground.

It’s turned off and he’s dragged to the gurney. He stopped fighting the moment the taser hit and the will to do so never returned.

There’s a needle pressed into a neck vain, and as the world grows warm and dark, he read the intern’s tag.

‘Rose Kelly’

The next sensation is the feeling of being ripped apart and he struggled to move. Blurry hands swarmed around his face until there was only darkness again.


	4. Chapter 4

Doctor Megan Reed walked among the cells, trailing a team of scientists who babbled about their inane project. She smiled and nodded without paying attention as she looked at the cells. A young lady who appeared thin and gaunt, glared at her from behind the glass, sitting on a cot, cross legged. She glanced back at the girl as they left the room. She was standing by the glass door, watching them leave. She was the only person she saw in the four prison cells, the other three empty.

She’d been working with Page Industries and their companies for almost a year, and while Mr. Page reassured her that all test subjects were either criminals or volunteers, it left her feeling vaguely ill. A team here had asked her down to look at their continuing research on nano augmentation and other teams who worked in the same facility had clambered to get her to look at their own. One team had been working on the remains of the Hyron, trying to get it back in working condition from the exploded wreck it’d been left after Panchaea. This team however, was working from the notes and diagrams of one of Darrow’s earlier ideas. It’d been nicknamed the Perdix Mechanism, and Megan wondered if it was named for the nephew that Daedalus had pushed off the cliff in jealousy. 

Still, she’d found the moment she met the head researcher, a woman named Doctor Roselyn Schmidt, that the rest of the team was going to be just as annoying. They’d become too absorbed into the idea that the project was brilliant and unique and was going to make them big names. The only one on the team that seemed to even think that it was a just a recreation of one man’s ideas and bringing them to life was the intern, and even she was overenthusiastic.

“And with the data on Patient X we finally received from you, Dr. Reed, the last test subject survived the augmentations and has been installed in the machine! Subject #037 even has been able to fully access the security system and he has lasted much longer then the other few who we’ve installed into the system. It’s such a success and it’s thanks to you and some data from the Hyron!” Schmidt smiled and turned back to her, her short hair and lab coat swishing. “We have the lab notes right here, so while we continue to the lab, you can read over them. Please tell me if you have anything that you need to question and I, Dr. Jones or Dr. Grant, can discuss with you.” She handed off the e-book and turned back to continue to walk to their lab. 

The young intern waited for Megan. “Actually, if you have any questions, come to me. Dr. Schmidt means well, but I’m quite sure if you actually had to say anything about her work, she’d be too excited to actually say anything worth while. She’s really excited to meet you, Dr. Reed.” She started walking at a slow pace, to match up with Megan. “Anyway, I’m the reason we’ve even been able to modify the system for removal. You won’t see that in the notes either. If subject #037 dies, I find this system has no future.”

Megan turned on the book and started to scan over the notes as they walked. The diagrams presented showed a nervous system augmentation that was much like the Hyron systems, but instead of ripping the spine out of the drone’s body to replace it with a fully augmented spine, the ports were drilled into the spine and there was an almost over complicated process described for making sure that the ports didn’t fully puncture the spine and yet still connected the subject’s nervous system. It talked about, in Megan’s opinion, the superfluous addition of extra augments, including lower arms, eyes, and a overlapping visor. They all tied into the system, apparently, with the arms being designed to act like a cursor when the Perdix was activated, the visor being a visible screen for the data to circulate on, and the eyes were to keep up with the speed of the system. It was attempting to make the subject seem to be more of a conscious user then a human server.

It was, all in all, a waste of augmentation, however. It went on to describe the various subjects. Subject #001 was a female, early 20’s. She’d fought the sedative, died due to blood lose. Subject #002, male, late 40’s. Died to complications in the augments. The term ‘Darrow Deficiency Syndrome’ was in brackets, with a question mark following it. This continued on, with most subjects dying on the operating table. The outliers were subjects #018, #027, and #037. 

Subject #018 had died on installation into the Perdix. It was noted he was conscious and functioning when installed, but suffered a brain hemorrhage due to badly installed ports. He was in his early 20’s. 

Subject #027 was a female, late 30’s. She’d been successfully installed into the machine, and they’d gotten it running for over a week. The readings had been good, apparently. But when they’d tried to disengage her from the system, something had gone horribly wrong and she’d perished.

The current subject, #037 was a male, late 30’s early 40’s. He’d been through what was described as the most extensive augmentations out of all previous subjects. There was what was either excessive damage or just weakness to vital organs, so they’d replaced or reinforced what they could, as well as the normal augmentations for the experiment. There had been a critical point where the anesthetic had worn off and they’d almost lost him, according to reports. However, through, what Doctor Jones had added in was ‘a fucking miracle’ to describe Subject #037’s recovery. He’d been installed and the system had been started and soon was running at full capacity. Removed after a week, a check-up had been done, and placed back into the Perdix. There were notes on how he was pretty much unresponsive during removals and check ups. He’d been there for at least three weeks now, according to a hastily added note from Schmidt.

So he was the subject who had survived. And they wanted her to see what her research had done for them, apparently. She pressed the button at the base of the e-book and switched it off. 

As she entered the lab after the intern, she had the tiniest voice in the back of her mind that she’d regret ever stepping in here. 

The lab was like most of the other labs in the compound; the walls were white, the tables were chrome, and red accents and boxes scattered about. The major difference was the machine that took up the middle and lower half of the room, the work and operating tables moved to the sides. 

That machine was the Perdix, she assumed. It was one of the smaller projects that Mr. Page kept funded, and as he explained, if it succeeded, there was another project that could be combined with it for the greater good of the company and the world. It was supposedly designed by Darrow to be a security system that integrated with it’s operators to work. It was said to have been designed, unlike the Hyron, to let the operators work in shifts and live what they called ‘a normal life’ outside of the machine. 

She never really thought that it would be one of the projects that Mr. Page had sponsored that ever would get off the ground. Designing the Hyron Drones to even work had taken so much time and yet still were faulty, so the money put into this was either a complete waste or a total success. She couldn’t see what practical research could be even gained from this failing.

But then again, here she was. Maybe there would be something in this. She doubted it though.

The intern walked over to Megan as she stood near the door. Megan glanced and finally read the girl’s ID tag. The girl’s name was ‘Rose Kelly.’

“Dr. Reed, they’d like to begin the presentation. Any questions before they show you the Perdix and subject #037?” She gestured over to the machine, where she could see a figure sitting in the middle of what was pretty much a mass of wires that connected to an overhanging structure built into the back wall.

“I don’t think so, Ms. Kelly. Thank you.” Megan forced a grin as she followed the girl to the machine.

It was almost impossible to see the actual subject through the cords, which seemed to come from every direction and draped over his shoulders to be connected into the back ports. There was the twitching of a hand under a few cords, and the subject’s eyes were covered by orangey red visors that extended from behind each ear to each side of the nose. 

“Dr. Reed, may we present subject #037. We’ll show you the Perdix actually working after we ask for your opinion on his augments. Your work in refining and redesigning the Hyron Drones was brilliant, and it’d be an honor to have your assistance with our research and experiment.” said Grant, his voice nasally and overexcited. 

“I’m honored you all seem to hold me in such a high esteem.” Megan held the ebook tightly in her grip. “Let’s look at his augmentations then.” She found these scientists to almost act like overeager puppies, but at least they were into the experiment. If she just focused on the experiment, then she’d get through this.

“Alright then! Rose, would you please start up your removal program?” He gestured to the intern, who’d already made her way to a bank of computers and started up the one closest to the Perdix.

“Already on it, sir.” She stepped back from the computer and held her right hand up, four fingers open. “Four, three, two, one…” She counted off each second by closing one of her fingers. The cords disengaged from the spinal ports and Megan looked up to see a pulley system pulling the loosened cables up and away from the subject’s body. 

The man slumped down in the metal chair, and Megan could see metal clamps around #037’s wrists loosen, the visors snapping into their holders. She could finally see the man’s face.

She bit back her tongue and her shock, holding her face stoic. Her knuckles turned white as she held tightly to the e-book.

He looked worse than before and his hair was shorter, but Megan knew that face. The amount of times they’d ended up fighting over security measures and him changing her password due to various incidents had really helped in engraving his face in her head. It was Pritchard, no doubt about it.

She crossed her right arm over her left to stop it from shaking. There was the taste of bile in her mouth as she watched both Grant and Jones walk up the the chair and carried him to one of the operating tables.

“As you can see, Dr. Reed, out of the three successes, he’s lived the longest, but he’s almost comatose when we disengage the system. Do you have any clue to why that could be?” Dr. Schmidt looked at Megan then back at Pritchard.

Megan snapped out of her staring and walked over to the table. “There could be many reasons. I read over the report. Can you show me what augments you used? There could be an allergic reaction there.” She bluffed. She knew Pritchard’s neural augments had never caused any sort of reaction and most of his were a mix of experimental ones and ones he’d modified to his own needs. It was more likely he was either playing dead or whatever drug they used as a sedative was creating an allergic reaction or it had just knocked him out cold and the machine was suppressing him even more. It could be any of those, or the worst option, that the machine had overwhelmed him.

She’d heard about that in the Hyron drones. The machine would overwhelm them and they either died in the machine or when they were removed to be replaced, instead of the   
usual pleads to kill them or the weak mutterings, they’d be still as stone and seemed to be fully comatose. She never knew if there was anyway to revive them. Sometimes they’d wake up and be lucid for a very short period of time before going back into a coma-like state.

“Certainly, Dr. Reed. The organs were what was left of our Tai-Yong stock and the limbs are prototypes Grant and I worked on designing. Our bioengineers built them. I’ll see if they have any extras.” Dr. Schmidt left the room and the other three moved away from the table, instead of their hovering, the moved to various corners of the lap.  
Megan quietly sighed in relief and went to work on examining him. The arms were crude compared to anything she’d ever seen. Was the entire project team a bunch of new people to the concept of designing limbs? They didn’t seem to have any sort of basis in organic structure, human anatomy or even just usability. She’d seen bizarre arms on people in Detroit, but they had all proved usable. The finger joints were block-like and stiff and she doubted they could even fully curl into the palm.

Her upper lip curled up in disgust as she tried to move the fingers. Either the design was crap or the people who built it had no experience. She gingerly put the arm down and looked at the visor implants.

They too, were cheaply made. She bit back her sharp words and swallowed. At least the organs they’d replaced were Tai-Yong, but she had her doubts about how well they’d been installed.

He looked gaunt and ill. Never a good sign. She brushed back his hair from the visor installation to look as if she needed to examine it better and muttered under her breath, “If I can do it, Pritchard, I’ll get you out of here. I owe Adam that much…” 

Plans were already churning in her mind as she asked Rose to help her turn him over so she could study the ports. Not that she felt like she needed to, but it was easier to keep up the ruse of checking the augments then yelling at the three other people in this room. There were metal plates around the ports, and under them, she could see red irritation. More bad news.

Once Schmidt brought back the organs, Megan expressed only a tiny part of her concern to Schmidt and faked a smile and complimented the machine, but said she should head off to sleep, as she was flying back early the next morning. Rose escorted her out of the lab and through the room of cells, which now held and had held people Megan fully understood as innocent. While Pritchard had been a thorn in her side for all her time at Sarif Industries, he wasn’t someone that would be locked up in here.

She walked through the compound and the moment Rose left her, she took out her phone and recorded the coordinates of the lab. She had an email to send and the hope that this would work in the back of her head.

It was time to pay her biggest debt and work on rectifying her mistakes. She knew there was no way to get Pritchard out on her own, so this was her only chance.

She pulled up an old email address and started typing in Faridah’s email as the recipient.

‘If you are looking for the location of one Francis W. Pritchard, here it is…’

She finished it and pressed send.


	5. Chapter 5

The email flashed a notification in Faridah’s inbox. 

It went unnoticed, as the office was empty currently empty. The occupant of said office, was driving down a road, clung to by Adam as they careened down a road, far over the legal speed limit.

“I did say slow down, you know!” He shouted through the helmet. “They’re not chasing us anymore!” They’d ended up with the unwelcome attention of one of the local gangs.  
She took a sharp turn down a road. “I’m not taking any chances, Jensen! You’re the one who got me into this mess!” She was right, he had to admit.

“Well for god’s sake, you’re not a goddamn stunt driver so stop acting like we’re in an action movie! We can get arrested, you know. I’m quite sure some members of the DPD really would like to arrest me anyway.” They weaved around cars, Malik leaning forward as they sped up.

“I’m not the idiot who stabbed a gang member!” 

“That was an accident!” He yelled. “It’s been a long day and I tried to punch him but he pissed me off enough that I ended up activating my arm blades! It was a mistake, Faridah! A goddamn mistake!”

“Shut up and let me drive!” She screamed as they continued to speed. There was silence as he closed his eyes, thankful for only wearing body armor for this trip. He’d learned that his coat was usually not the best thing to wear on the bike after the first trip.

After a point, she started to slow down until they stopped at a tiny, almost run down looking liquor store. “Okay. I need a bag of chips.” She started as she turned to him, sliding off the helmet and placing the strap around her arm. “And you owe me a bottle of whatever the fuck they got that’s strong and hi-quality. I just saved your ass, spyboy, and I never want to have to see that sort of mess again. Then we go back to Sarif Industries and pretend you didn’t just stab a man and we’ll get back to working on leads.” He slid his helmet off and Faridah brought a hand to her face, pointing to her cheek. “You have blood on your face. Might want to wipe that off.” 

“Oh.” He said as he wiped at it with the back of one of his hands, smearing it. She sighed and dug a cloth out of her pocket and held his face to wipe it away, before seeing other patches of blood that she scrubbed at. The blood was still mostly wet, so without too much pressure, it wiped away.

“There, you don’t look like you just killed someone anymore.” She muttered as she slid off the bike, opening a small storage compartment in the back to throw the cloth in.  
He followed her off the bike and crossed his arms. “So you want a bag of chips? Right after all of that, Faridah?” He asked, still trying to figure out why they’d stopped after she’d been so eager to keep running.

“I’m this close from just leaving you here, Adam.” She held her arm up and made a tiny space with her finger and thumb. “I’m tired, hungry, and really want a stiff drink. Today has again, been exhausting.” 

He could certainly agree with her there. Since Francis had disappeared, most days had been pretty taxing. As she was now the current tech in charge, a girl named Hannah, had learned the flaws of Frank’s usual system.

There were missing passwords. That were needed for specific parts of the longterm upkeep. While this wasn’t too bad, as Hannah said, she didn’t need them for the actual defense of Sarif Industries, but if she needed to overhaul the system or even fix bugs, it wasn’t going to work. 

He turned to go into the shop as he mulled over something Faridah had said about the missing passwords a few days ago. Pritchard was suppose to have them written somewhere or given to Adam. “No offense, but when it comes to security he now trusts Sarif about as far as he can spit and to him, you and passwords don’t have a good track record. I know he never liked trusting you with passwords. Once said it was like putting an EMP in a server room and expecting everything to work after it went off.” She’d explained as they ate really shitty fast food in her office, trying to figure out what to do next.

He pulled a bag of plain chips off of a shelf and turned to look at the shelves of alcohol before pulling a bottle of vodka, from a brand he’d had before out. Wasn’t the strongest thing around, but he had a feeling Faridah wouldn’t care, despite her request. 

It’d been almost three weeks, and he’d found the more walls he punched, the more thugs they found to question about the usual black market trade, the more he was losing hope that they’d find Pritchard, alive or dead. People disappeared from Detroit every day. What if Frank didn’t want to be found? What if this was just Francis running away from the city, faking his own capture so he wouldn’t be found. He had the tech to hide his GPL.

It didn’t seem like something the arrogant, snarky, and loner technician would do. Francis, he assumed, liked where he was. When they’d gone out for drinks once, Francis had confided in them, while drunk, that he didn’t even have a high school diploma; he’d been kicked out of his home at seventeen and that had been that for his schooling. He’d traveled down from New England to New York on his own, to live with a friend who’d extended an offer. They’d started doing hacking jobs for shady people, and for a bit, they lived in New York City until things got dicy and they’d moved to Detroit. There was a falling out and he found his own place and continued to take up shady jobs. And that’s what Frank did with his life until July 17th, 2020 and he got arrested.

He paid for the food and booze lost in thought, not paying attention to the odd looks his exposed body armor, activated lenses, and the gun holsters brought to him. The first lead they had with the mysterious clearing of the side streets had led nowhere. So they checked with gangs, Adam asking questions, trying to look like he was looking for shady augments to buy. There wasn’t any sign of modified neural hubs or experimental hacking implants. 

Some days, after they did what work they could do, they didn’t have anything to check out. They’d end up in Faridah’s office, sitting and discussing what they did know, and he could see the cracked mp3 player just siting on her desk. The other thing that made him shy away from the idea Frank had faked it. With the way Faridah had described the care put into it, he doubted the man would let it be broken just to run away.

No ransom, no motive, no body, no GPL, and no implants. There was no trace. A dead end, a most likely dead friend.

He didn’t have many of those left, so the addition of yet another name to that roster was something Adam was hoping he could prevent. 

He exited the shop and handed over the bag in exchange for his helmet. “Ready to go back to work, Jensen?” She asked as she placed the bag in the same compartment that she put the bloody cloth in as he put the helmet on.

“Yeah, let’s get back to the office.” He said. Faridah swung a leg over the bike and placed her helmet on and he got on behind her as she started up the bike.

“You know the usual warning, by now.” She said as she pulled out of the space.

“Hang on?”

He could hear her laugh, but it was a forced one. “You got it.” And he did hold on as she sped up. The journey was the usual train of ‘oh god we’re going to crash’ and closing his eyes during turns until they pulled into the underground Sarif Industries. People were milling around, getting into their cars to leave for the night. 

Hannah waved the duo over once they parked from where she stood next to her car. Malik retrieved her bag and they walked over. She was younger then Malik, comparatively shorter then both of them, her black hair in a bun, her eyes masked by a pair of sunglasses. She was very severe looking, all sharp angles, accentuated by her dark skin.

“Did you guys find anything?” Hannah asked. She’d been another redeemed hacker, this time being brought on board by Pritchard himself, after talking to Sarif once he found her getting through his systems and figured out where she was. Much like Frank himself, she’d been given an ultimatum. Take the job or jail. She’d been there as long as Adam had. 

Faridah wondered if that was why she was so eager to help them find their friend. Unlike a good portion of the cyber security department, she seemed fond of the man, at the very least she certainly was thankful to Pritchard.

Adam shook his head and Faridah sighed. “Nothing. There’s no sign of his implants being sold on the black market and we haven’t seen or heard of any body being found.” 

Faridah said, before gesturing to Adam. “And this idiot did something really stupid, so we’re going to have to be cautious for a while when going out looking for leads.”

Hannah sighed in defeat. “Fuck. We’re running out of time, aren’t we? He’s dead for all we know and then I’ll end up having to completely wipe and recode this companies security system.” She brought a hand to her face and removed the sunglasses, revealing dark circles under brown eyes, and squinted, adjusting to the bright lights in the car park. She placed the sunglasses on her head. “I have to deal with some of the other technicians anyway, so I guess we’ll all go up.” She started to the elevator and they followed her, quiet as the doors opened and two other employees wandered out, a pair of girls.

“Did you hear what Katie did?” Said one, a girl in advertising, if Jensen could recall. He did not remember her name. The rest of the conversation faded away as they walked.

The ride up was silent, all three of them uncomfortable. As they got out, Faridah stopped Hannah. “Before you go off, wanna join us for a drink? I really need one after tonight.” She asked. Adam raised his eyebrows in a questioning glance. They never invited anyone else, usually.

“Sure, I guess. Can’t drink much though. Things to do. You mean at a bar, right?” 

Faridah shook her head and raised the bag she was holding. “Bottle of…” She opened the bag and looked at the bottle, squinting to read the label. “Vodka. Apparently. I didn’t buy it, Jensen did. I’ll just send Jensen to grab some cups from the lounge and we’ll drink in my office.”

Hannah looked a bit taken aback. “You’re allowed to do that?”

The pilot shrugged. “We’ve done it before. I try not to get drunk, or even drink if I have to fly, but honestly, I consider tonight an exception.”

Hannah mulled over it for a second, then sighed. “You know, I’ll take it. I need something to do other then two people’s jobs.” She yawned, and they set off to Faridah’s office.

That is how they ended up sitting around Malik’s desk two hours later, a empty bag of chips and an half-full bottle of vodka. Surprisingly, out of all of them, Hannah had drunken the most and then moved to the couch.

Faridah sighed as she saw Hannah sleeping on the couch, the girl curled around herself. “I still can’t believe she took all of Francis’s duties on herself, instead of splitting them up with other people.” She said, swirling around what was still her first glass of the drink, before taking a sip. “She’s gonna run herself into the ground. I still don’t know how Pritchard managed all he did, and she’s doing that and her own work.”

Adam shrugged, pouring more of the vodka into his paper cup and downing it. “She’s doing a pretty good job, too. I can see why she’s one of the better employees. I don’t remember Pritchard ever complaining about her work when he’d get pissed off at his department. It was usually Gordon… or whatever that guy’s name is, that Pritchard would complain about. G- something.” 

“Yeah.” Faridah nodded and turned to her computer, logging in. “I better see if the boss has anything he wants me to do tomorrow. We haven’t been around much to do anything other then our normal duties and even then I’ll admit, I’ve been rather slap-dash on my work.” She pulled up her email and started reading through what she had. Faridah was right though. They hadn’t done much other then the duties that took them about three hours. If it wasn’t for the fact Sarif was worried about the disappearance as well, Adam would have expected to be reprimanded by now. 

Adam deactivated the lenses and walked over to hover over her shoulder, arms crossed. Spam, so someone needed to fix the spam filters, something about the VTOL part order being unable to be filled, some correspondence… He felt her push at his gut with a jab. “Back up, Adam. Privacy, please.” She muttered.

“Sorry, sorry.” He apologized before grabbing the rest of the vodka bottle. She gave a hm noise in forgiveness as she continued reading.

It was a few minutes spent nursing the bottle until he noticed her silence, eyes wide at the screen. “Malik, what’s the issue?”   
She shook her head and reread the screen before turning to Jensen. “If you are looking for the location of one Francis W. Pritchard, here it is…” She read it off and turned to Adam. “I just got sent a fucking coordinate. I…” She sighed and turned back to the email. “I don’t recognize the email, certainly. If it wasn’t for the fact this is the most solid thing I’ve seen all day, I’d call it a trap. But we’ve been searching for weeks and seen nothing. We’d be heading too…” She called up a map and located the coordinate. “Ohio. Looks like a lab.”

“You’re kidding me.” He’d already hopped up to read the email over her shoulder. “God. This seems like a trap, but it’s all we got. We need to go check it out.”

“Maybe we should get Hannah to trace the email first.”

They both looked over to see the sleeping hacker, curled up and snoring. A pair of sunglasses sat on the floor. “Are we really going to wake her up? She looked like she hadn’t slept in a week when we were in the car park.” He questioned.

“What, should we just suit up and head out?” Faridah gave him a look. They’d just been drinking for crying out loud. She swore under her breath as she looked at Adam. His ever present tenacity and almost obsessive urge to get to the bottom of things was showing. “We need to wait until morning. Or you can wake up Sarif to tell him.” She was glad the boss had headed home for the evening. Gave her a way to deflect Jensen’s crazy idea.

Adam smirked. “Who said anything about waking up the boss? We should just go. You have your flight suit in a locker, and we can stop at my apartment so I can pick up something a bit heavier then the stun gun/pistol/revolver combo I have in case I need it. Maybe the shotgun. Also grenades.”

“You’ve been drinking. I’ve been drinking. Flying and drinking is never a good combination, spyboy. Neither is fighting and drinking.”

“You’ve had less then one cup in two hours. I know that the paper cups here hold about 8 oz, and you’ve had about half that. I metabolize alcohol faster then everyone thanks to the Sentinel Health system. I think we’re good.” He tried to rationalize.

“We’ll go first thing in the morning. I’m going to get Hannah to check this place out and then I’ll steal your couch and sleep. If you’re going to be this eager…” She looked at the clock on her computer. “Wake me up at three. We’ll go before dawn.”

“Got it. I’m going to get to my apartment then. Pick up supplies and my coat.” He headed to the door, bottle capped and under his arm.

Faridah nodded and she turned to the sleeping tech. “Hannah, we got a lead. I need you to trace the email I got a coordinate from.” She said, shaking the girl’s shoulder.


	6. Chapter 6

The building smelled like a hospital as he entered it from a vent. It was a simple building, one floor, quite different from the Omega Ranch, on the outside. There wasn’t even a good helipad for Malik to land on, so she dropped him off where she could, and took to the sky. He’d found a way to the roof. 

They had Hannah running coms. When they’d landed, she, through the static, said that “Your GPLs have dropped out. I think your mysterious email might be telling the truth. At the very least, this place has a jammer.” She’d tried to find the email account and who it belonged to, but the name the account was linked to was literally a random string of letters and it had only been used for that email, apparently. Hannah said she could see if the owner had a retrieval email at one point, but Faridah had stopped her.

“We’ve gotten a helping hand from someone who doesn’t want to be known, I guess. I hate saying it, but we’re just going to have to trust them.” She had said, stopping Hannah from driving herself deeper into hunting their secret assistant. 

So here he was, the infolink unusable, in the vent of a building smelling of antiseptic. Faridah was in the sky, waiting for him to call her down when they found Pritchard. 

First step was certainly finding that jammer. The static in the infolink was full of vague memories of Rifleman Bank, Omega Ranch, and Panchaea. It made an unpleasant sensation, for all those places had lead to death, pain, or destruction. He’d rather be able to report back to Faridah and Hannah.

He crawled through the vent, keeping an ear out for things. It was early morning still, so only a few scientist were around. The guards were silent on patrols, which struck Jensen as rather odd. The radar showed that none of them were alarmed, so in all his experience, he expected the chit-chat. Even his guards would chatter. Adam tracked their movements through an exposed vent grate, memorizing the patrol route they took while hanging back in the darkness.

Three guards seemed to loop around the hall. He scowled. Two, he could knock both out and drag them into a vent or behind something without causing alarm. Three, well, one would end up crying out if he couldn’t punch them silent in time, or run to the alarm. 

He was trying to be stealthy, not alert the entire building to his presence.

The shotgun’s weight was heavy on his back as he waited for them to pass where he waited to continue his search for a place to emerge. He hadn’t brought much with him in terms of arms. His shotgun, revolver, pistol, stun gun, the assorted ammo needed, a few frags, a few more EMPs, and a few packs of remote detonators. His medical equipment had taken more priority. Between painkillers and cyberboost, he’d grabbed all the hypostims he owned and an actual medical kit, fearing the worst.

He moved as soon as they were far enough away. From what he could see of the interior of the building though, it gave a sickening feeling of the Omega Ranch. But it was much more the sterile white of some hospitals that set chills down his spine. He scowled as he watched yet another patrol through a grate. Silent, still. The entire place seemed off.

He kept crawling through the ventilation system, looking for a good exit point. The patrols were relentless, but soon he came to the end of the line. A darkened room, the only lights from half-asleep computers and a window to the hallway outside. He could saw the pinpoint on the radar. One man in the room. 

As he opened the vent and crawled to the carpet, he could hear snoring and he switched to a low crouch. He approached the chair the guard slept in carefully, and then lashed out into a choke hold, one hand over the guy’s mouth. The guard struggled, waking, until he slumped, unconscious. 

Adam drug him to the vent and shoved him inside, making sure he was deep enough into the shadows that no one would see. Still crouching, Adam surveyed the room. Security terminal near the window, he noted it would be best to be cautious when hacking through it. There was a orange PDA sitting next to the chair the man once slept in, so he pulled it off. There was a reminder embedded in it.

>  ‘ _Don’t burn the subject’s clothing until we are told to remove all traces of them from the facility. At that point, we are given permission to ransack their valuables. IDs must be cut apart and shredded until unreadable. As the body will be burned, all evidence must follow. They will have never existed. Each box is labeled with the subject’s number. #004 is the subject who has yet to be used, for some reason._
> 
> _Subjects:_
> 
> _#001, #002, #003…’_

They were all crossed out except for an #037 and #004.

Adam narrowed his eyes in disgust and glanced around the what he now assumed was a guard post until he saw two small boxes. #004 and #037. With care, he went for #004’s first. A faux brown leather jacket sat on top of a pile of clothing, with a wallet tucked into the back. He pulled the wallet. An LiMB ID card made out to a Kaylee Jones. He pressed it back into the box and closed it. 

He pulled #037’s box next, and held his breath as he removed the lid. “Shit.” Was all Adam could mutter as he looked at Pritchard’s jacket, neatly folded. The wallet and phone were tucked up in the back, much like Kaylee’s had been. Those he pulled and stashed in one of the few empty pouches they had. He was hesitant about the jacket before giving in and grabbing it. It was useless, but he didn’t know if it could come in handy. He closed the box and put it back as he heard footsteps closing in.

As they approached the door, he pressed against the wall and activated his cloaking. 

The men had heavy armor, and there were two of them as they stepped into the room.

“Where’s George? I thought he had camera duty.” Adam held his breath. Besides it being the first voice he’d heard in the godforsaken place, he could feel the energy cells in the cloak decharging. 

“Probably stepped out to go get water. You know that bastard. Any news from Kelly on the status of Subject #037? He had a lot of credits in that wallet of his. I’m just waiting until the machine kills the sap. Besides, then we’ll actually be able to control the cameras and robots again.” The second guard replied. Adam questioned the machine part in his head. What had Pritchard been ‘used’ for?

“That machine is creepy as fuck, and I was able to sneak a peek yesterday, around this time. Those augments are even creepier. The guy’s eyes are hidden and he’s all wired up. You can’t even tell he’s human.” Adam scowled as he saw how close he was until he lost the second to last battery and looked at the radar. No other pinpoints were close enough to warrant them hearing. Placing the jacket down, he snuck up on the two guards and stood up before he threw them to the ground, one on top of the other, and skewered them.

This time, it wasn’t a mistake. Much like his time at the Omega Ranch and part of Rifleman Bank, he breached his usual tactics of knock-outs. These ‘bastards,’ to steal the second guard’s words, did not deserve mercy. Letting people use other humans for experiments? Adam gritted his teeth at the thought and folded Pritchard’s jacket up, storing it in a rather big pocket he’d had modified to the inside of his coat that he used to use for modifications he’s found but not had time to install. 

He pushed their bodies underneath a desk and turned to the back wall which he’d been pressed up against. He smirked and walked to the desk next to where he’d been. If he knew anything from other adventures, that was the signal jammer.

As soon as it was off, he saw Hannah’s infolink request pop up on the HUD and accepted.

“I see Pritchard’s GPL signal. Just turned on, same time as yours.” She reported.

“Figured. Just switched off the jammer. I found his stuff, beforehand. He’s here, Hannah. And hopefully, still alive.”

“Good. Hannah out.” The request disappeared from his HUD and he switched his frequencies to connect to Faridah’s.

“Malik. He’s here. Apparently, they’ve been doing augmentation research here. Involving some sort of ‘machine.’ Pritchard’s alive, from what I can tell, but I don’t know what they’ve done to him.”

There was a breath of relief from the infolink. “Just… just bring him home, Adam.”

He nodded, despite Faridah being unable to see his head move, a cold fury in his heart at what had happened to their friend. “I plan to, Faridah.” He said, before turning off the infolink. 

After that, he scavenged the men and the rest of the room. He brought up cyberboost bars and pulled them out of the wrappers to eat as he placed ammo clips in their various pouches and then he pulled his pistol out and checked it, reloading and preparing for what would lie ahead.

Credit chips went into their usual place, and there were extra AUDs in some drawers. Those he grabbed for a quick escape if he needed an open door while getting shot at, despite having a few already. He had a feeling he was going to need them.

He pulled up the security computer and started to chip away at it’s defenses until he was quickly blocked out. He scowled and tried again, with the same results.

In response, he pressed one of the new AUDs to the machine and heard the typical wurr and buzz as it unlocked the machine. He brought up the cameras and deactivated them all, then as he logged off, he noticed the cameras reactivating.

He tried to log back in, but the password had changed, the computer locking itself up, and he wasn’t about to waste another AUD on it.

Security terminals were going to be useless, weren’t they. He pressed a hand to his head before he gave up and moved to the door, holding his pistol at the ready. He stepped into the bright hallway and activated the noise dampeners in his feet before starting a silent jog down the abandoned corridor. As he approached a corner, the radar in the corner of his HUD showed two approaching potential hostiles and he pressed against a wall, edging closer to the turn. Deactivating the dampeners, he reactivated the cloak and looked out from behind the wall. 

Taking aim, he shot one in the head, then as the other was raising his gun, he pulled the trigger and the second guard fell. Deactivating the cloak, he noticed the camera at the end watching him and scowled before taking aim with the pistol and shooting it, rendering it useless. 

The alarm blared, but he didn’t hear the noise of feet rushing down the corridor, so he took his time, looting the men. They proved to only be useful as a source of cyberboost bars and the ammo was all combat rifle.

He devoured the bars before hiding the wrappers in the pockets of the corpses and continued down the hall, cloaked. 

The halls still gave him the creeps, even with his face in an impassive standstill. White walls with faint indentations, white floors, and steel accents. The only other colors were the blood spilled and destroyed cameras. He poked into one room, which was an abandoned lab. He was tempted to poke around, but as time was of the essence. To Adam, every second wasted was another second that Francis might end up dead.

By the time he reached the cell room, he’d been shot in the chest at least three times and had gotten into a fist fight with a disarmed guard before he’d stabbed the man in the throat with an arm blade. Most of the blood on his face was not his. He picked up an old revolver, one that hadn’t been upgraded.

The frown lines in his brow deepened as he silently walked through the cells. They were empty. He counted at least sixteen as he started to the doors, but turned at the tapping noise coming from the last one at the left.

“You don’t look like you belong here. And I can hear alarms.” Said the lady he could vaguely identify as Kaylee Jones, the other ‘subject’ still alive. Compared to her ID photo, she was emaciated and sickly looking but somehow, she was standing. He approached the cell and threw one of the AUDs on the lock.

“You don’t either.” He replied as the AUD fell off the lock, the door moving open. “You might want to get out of here.”

She nodded as she looked him up and down, taking in the bloodstained armor. “Why are you here anyway?” She asked as she stepped out of the cell, her legs shaking as she walked to Jensen.

“A friend.” Adam tensed at the question, but responded to her. “He’s still alive, according to what I’ve heard.”

“Frank is the only one who might still be alive. I’m guessing it’s him you’re looking for?” Adam wordlessly nodded in reply as she looked at him, her eyes narrowing. He wondered if she trusted him. “If he’s still alive, which I assume he is, seeing as I’m still alive, you’ll just need to keep this way. Almost all patrols would turn back here, but when they carted someone off, well, they’d just go this way and open the doors.” Then she paused, fingers tapping against her thigh, hands shaking. She looked left and right. “Do you have anything to eat?”

“Yeah,” he quickly riffled through a pocket until he pulled out two cyberboost bars and handed them over. “Anything else you need?” He was hesitant to leave her alone, as she might be killed, but at the same time Adam was shifting back and forth on his feet, wanting to continue on and get to where ever the hell Frank was. Every second was another wasted. 

She shifted her posture from standing straight up to tilted to the left, the bars clenched in her fist.  “Got something to help me get out of here?” She asked. “I can use a gun, before you ask.” 

He hesitantly handed over the revolver he’d picked up. “You should go the way I came from. Killed a lot of guards already. Good luck.”

It was a second before he reactivated his cloak and jogged to the door. He couldn’t spend another moment in this place. He did not see if she left or was taking aim at his back, but he walked through the door.

It was like a nightmare mix of what he’d seen while working with Keitner as well the Omega Ranch. These halls weren’t patrolled as heavily, however. 

Adam did not understand how it tasted even more like antiseptic as he shifted out of the cloak to use his energy cells to power up his legs and sprinted through the halls. He passed by small labs that he peeked into quickly. They were empty and cold.

He skidded into a patrol of three guards and on instinct, threw out his arm blades to stab two of them in the chest quickly before knocking the third to the ground, pulling them up to slit their throat. 

He didn’t care as he sheathed the arm blades. Specks of blood were already drying on his face as he continued on, a scowl heavy on his face. While the halls twisted around, they seemed to interconnect and lead to the same room. 

He pushed open the door.

“Jesus Christ.” He said, shocked as he looked over the machine.

It was the Hyron all over again.


	7. Chapter 7

_It was cold. Not that the Admin connected up to the Perdix could tell or rather, care. Still, ambient room temperature was at 8℃. It reported this data to the Admin, but there was no response._

_The Admin was dying. The system could not feel, but it knew the signs of a slowly dying Admin. The Admin’s temperature was at 102 ℉ and slowly rising as time went on. Response time had lagged off. Heartbeat was erratic. Weight had dropped off quickly. Breathing was hindered._

_It sensed the intrusion through the vents. The vent on the roof had been opened, but that was not cause for widespread panic induced by the alarm system_

_The Admin’s visor-like glasses snapped open._

_Electric shocks quickly passed to the Admin’s augmented arms. There was not a word uttered, but cameras snapped to attention and fingers slowly extended. Eyes opened and traced the data being streamed across the lenses._

_This posture was kept for only a few seconds. The Admin slumped in the chair, but basic commands were issued through the link up. Keep cameras alert, don’t release the robots._

_The next time the Admin was alerted was when the intruder tried to hack through the security terminal. Both tries were thwarted with a flick of the fingers. The AUD was detected, but the Admin relented as the intruder started to access the machine and worked at turning off the cameras._

_The system regulated the cameras back on, and the Admin processed the computer password change, before slumping forward._

_Still, as the man turned off the jammer, something clicked for the Admin and the machine was stopped from automatically turning it back on. The Admin was unable to tell who they once were. They were designated as Admin #037. But something, in the back of what was still functioning in #037’s mind, said that this was okay. This was normal. And that fluctuated back to the machine._

_The cameras followed a man quietly creeping out of a guard’s room, and between bouts of darkness, the Admin watched too. The alarms sounded instantly the moment it detected a body down. The Admin could not stop them, but patrols were lax, the machine reported back. The schedule for tonight was sparse. The camera was destroyed._

_They followed the man. Guards were killed without mercy, and the Admin drew one camera into a close up of the intruder’s face. Then, the intruder cloaked and kept moving. He got into various fights, either executing guards with his augmentations or shooting them. He spared none._

_Everything hurt, the Admin reported. The Admin fell forward again, and even the light jolts of electrical charge into their augments were not awakening the Admin._

_The machine reasoned death was soon. The Admin’s internal temperature was reaching 103.4 ℉. Much like the last two who’d been installed. Admin #037 was dying. They’d taken much longer to die then the others. Admins did not last that long, normally. #037 was an anomaly. #037 was going to die, however. Much like the last._

_The man had reached the cells. Cameras watched as he released #004 from her prison and gave her food and a gun. She was quickly abandoned as the intruder went one way, the path to where the Admin was, while #004 ran the opposite way._

_Patrols were mostly in the second set of labs, and besides tracking the invisible intruder, they tracked former captive #004. She ran through the halls, avoiding bloody bodies and scrambled on her last legs to the exit._

_She encountered a set of two men and hid behind a wall, taking aim and shooting both of them with the gun given to her._

_The cameras trailed her to the doors of the building, and with the look one who was human might describe as a ‘deer in the headlights’ she escaped into the cold._

_The man had gotten into a fight with a trio of guards. Two laid on the floor, stabbed in the chest, while the third had his throat cut open._

_The cameras could not find the man in the halls, all of them flashed through the Admin’s glasses, despite the Admin being unconscious._

_The rarely used camera connected to the machine activated, and he stood in front of the Perdix. Eyes covered by orange lenses, blood smeared on his face and clothing. Augmented hands holstered a gun._

_His face was one of grim determination._

Adam looked up at the machine. He tried to take the huge overhanging mass of metal and wires. He gulped down a series of swears and walked up to the machine. Covered in wires, hair short, eyes covered by weird purple lenses that almost connected at the bridge of his nose, but it was Pritchard.

Stupid senseless Francis. There was no doubt about who it was. Adam felt like throwing up at the sight of his friend sitting there, wired up into the machine.

His first thought was to approach the machine and just rip the wires out of him with his arm blades and hands. One of those stupid but effective ideas. It’d be easy and quick. He could then just scoop up Pritchard or if he could get the man to a lucid state, assist him in running, and they could get to Faridah. 

His hands clenched. The wires could be all that were keeping Francis alive. It’d been weeks. Who knew how long the man had been there. Who knew what just senselessly tearing out the wires that connected him to a machine would do.

He quickly looked around the lab for help and pulled one of many e-books off of a work table, his thumb pressing on the power, the thin screen humming to life. 

Lab notes. What a surprise. 

 

> _Perdix Notes: Subject #037_
> 
> _Male_
> 
> _6’0”_
> 
> _Late 30’s - Early 40’s?_
> 
> _Relatively Healthy: Lung Damage, Chest is sunken in, Augmented Previously_
> 
> _Weight pre-surgery: 140 lbs_
> 
> _Weight post-surgery: 150 lbs_
> 
> _Weight two weeks in: 110 lbs_
> 
> _Current Status:_

Adam scrolled through to the most current update in the log. He didn’t really need to know how Francis had been two weeks ago. Thankfully, it’d been updated last night.

 

> _Feverish. We’re tempted to try to remove him from the system again, but last time there proved to be complications after Doc. Reed left. While that was the first vocalization we’ve heard since pre-surgery, I do not wish to be subjected to #037’s screaming again._
> 
> _His weight loss is severe. Breathing is lagging off. I fear he is dying._
> 
> _Rose suggested that we do it, for having a subject die while hooked up to the machine could screw up the system, again._
> 
> _I do agree, but Jones and Grant are being stuck up and declaring that a stupid idea._
> 
> _I wish we still had Doctor Reed around, to be blunt. She’s had experience with the Hyron drones and the Perdix’s system is pretty much a mix of Drone data and the original notes. She could be right. Subject #037 could be allergic to the materials in the augments. Based on the fact we found neural augments in his head during surgery makes me doubt Darrow Deficiency Syndrome._
> 
> _Still, I am hoping subject #037 makes it. We’ve had so much success with him._

Adam clicked off the e-book and scowled. Nothing but the sickening knowledge that his coworker… his friend, actually, was dying. 

He pulled the next one off the table. Notes for other various subjects appeared as he turned on various e-books. He saw every set of subject notes until the table was empty. Nothing useful. He placed the one that was for #037 inside his jacket. It could at least come in handy later, for at least, the doctors.

Besides the notes on the work bench, the lab was clean, papers seemingly put away. The entire room seemed like they’d made sure there was no clutter anywhere. Had they been trying to impress someone? He pulled the notes out, to read through them again, trying to figure out who.

It dawned a few seconds later.

Doctor Reed. 

Hyron research. 

The only Reed it could be was Megan Reed. Jensen took a deep breath as he put the electronic book away and fought the urge to grit his teeth or snap the log in half. Megan had her hands in a destructive science project again, and it’d ended up affecting his life. Again. He needed to do something more productive then fume about it.

He pressed a pair of fingers to the base of his ear and switched on the infolink. Faridah’s frequency was still the one he was connected up too. “Malik, I found him.” He said.

“Wh- is he okay? Jensen, seriously, is he okay?” 

“I wouldn’t define being hooked up to a machine as okay. But he’s breathing. That’s more then I can say for 36 other people.” He lightened up on the truth. Pritchard was slowly dying as they spoke, but Faridah didn’t need that bit of info right away. 

“Fuck.” She paused for a second. “Call me back when you’re ready for pick up. I have a feeling we don’t have much longer. Where I dropped you off, alright?”

“Got it, Malik.” He clicked off the infolink and looked at the ground of the lab. Eyes scanned across tiles, trying not to look up at the Perdix. It was too much like the Hyron system for Jensen to be comfortable. They’d fucking used the disaster that the Hyron was to design this… he grasped for words. It took Jensen a few seconds before figuring while monstrosity was still too light, it was the closest he could get to the disgust and rage he felt at this thing being built and used. Another destructive thing his DNA had abled people to create.

His attention shifted to an e-book shoved under the next table. He’d missed that. Crouching down, he picked it up and booted it up.

 

> _Overview of Perdix: For the Use of Doctor Megan Reed_

She’d already been there, to add insult to injury.

 

> _The Perdix Mechanism is a device that was originally designed by the esteemed Sir Hugh Darrow. On the request of Page Industries, we were given the task of reworking the Perdix Mechanism with the original notes and the remains of the Hyron Project that are being rebuilt. The Perdix is designed as a  security system, controlled by what could be described as “Admins” that resemble the “Drones” of the Hyron. Admins are to be able to be removed and switched out without damaging the Admins or killing them. This was designed to have more of a submersible security system, with augmented workers who could live their lives instead of being tethered to a machine._
> 
> _We’ve been tasked with making this a reality._
> 
> _As you can see, the Perdix itself is working fine…_

Jensen scowled as he scrolled through the information, trying to find something more relevant. He didn’t have much time. 

 

> _The current subject is known as #037._
> 
> _He has survived the longest, and including your visit, will have survived three removal processes. Due to this, Intern Kelly has created a more automated removal system, which we’ve tested. As you can see, the computer system hooked up to the Perdix controls this._

He looked at it again and reread the short passage. An automated removal system. In the room. That was certainly less dangerous then just cutting Francis out of the system. As said computer wasn’t hooked up on this side of the Perdix machine, Adam jogged over to the other side, sliding the e-book with the other, trying to avoid eye contact with the machine and the person hooked up to it. He failed, and through the cords, he could see how slumped over Pritchard was. 

It translated into the idea that there wasn’t much time left, and without glancing at the wire and paper strew desk, Adam pulled an AUD and pressed it to the computer, barely giving it time to work as he accessed the machine, taking down the email client and getting into the removal program.

It was activated with a click, and Jensen stepped back from the computer desk to watch the cords slowly disengage and start to retract back from Pritchard, who folded in on himself before toppling to the ground, the visor snapping closed before he hit the ground.


	8. Chapter 8

Jensen had worked on righting the technician first, after a mad dash up to the metal chair. Pritchard looked horrible. The cords had disguised just how thin and gaunt he was. His ribs could be counted, his cheeks were hollow, and despite how pale the man had been before, Jensen was pretty sure he had not been a sickly white. While he couldn’t really tell the man’s temperature with a touch, his augments reported that it was 105 ℉ was under his fingers, sweat beaded on Frank’s skin. The augmentations he could see made Adam cringe. He’d been forcibly augmented, but some of it had been needed to save his life. He still wasn’t happy with it, but unlike this, some of it was needed. 

This had been like someone’s sick science fair experiment. No consent to it, Pritchard had been taken and used as an experiment, a subject. Unwillingly, he’d been augmented up and used as an ‘Admin’ for this disaster. 

It made Jensen ill as he looked over the damage. In a way, he looked even worse then the Hyron drones had. At least they hadn’t looked like a prototype nightmare.

The arms had been modified up to above Frank’s elbows, and the augments were clunky looking. Based off what he could see, he doubted they would truly move like fingers or hands. They seemed to have an even more limited rotational range. 

There was a series of ports installed along the man’s spine, ending at the base of his skull. The skin around them was a brilliant red and full of scar tissue. The visor holders were right before Pritchard’s ears. Jensen scowled and lightly touched the man’s shoulder. “Pritchard.”

God, he hoped he could get this man to wake up. At the very least, he’d know if Pritchard was really alive. 

“Francis.” He pushed the man lightly again. “Francis. Come on. Wake up.” He sighed and put a hand down on Francis’s head, Pritchard’s hair was stringy and matted. He’d been here for weeks, without anything. “Please, wake up.” The idea made him even more ill.

There was an unintelligible groan from Frank and he fell forward. “Pritchard, we need to get going. Come on, wake up.” Jensen tried, righting Francis.

The man’s eyes fluttered open and Jensen tried not to retch at the glint of silver he saw before the eyes closed again. They’d really taken so much from Pritchard, all for the sake of whatever the hell the Perdix Mechanism was for.

“Francis.” He said again, this time Frank’s eyes opened for more then a second. They were fully metal, steel colored, with metal lenses that contracted and shifted, adjusting to the light.

There was no voice, but he could see Francis’s lips move. The tech tried again, his voice making no intelligible words, but a dry raspy noise. “Can you stand?” Adam asked, trying to tell the tech to stop speaking without saying it outright.

Pritchard struggled to get his arms to the floor and tried to get his legs under him, but they didn’t even move. He lifted his torso slightly but fell back against the chair front and shook his head.

“Je-jensen?” He finally said, his voice a faint whisper. Pritchard looked up at Jensen. “Everything h-hurts.” He managed, voice slurring as he closed his eyes again.

“Yeah, I’d bet.” Jensen kept his face impassive and tried not to apologize for them taking so long to find Francis. Every bit of him wished they’d found out about this place earlier. “We’re getting out of here. I guess I’ll just have to carry you out of here.”

Steel eyes looked down. “Do-don’t. Just leave me here. Too m-much hurts.” His voice was barely above a whisper as he glanced at his arms. “Wh-when did th-this happen?” Pritchard’s voice shook as he weakly raised them to his lap. “I guess. Th-that wasn’t a nightmare.” He muttered, closing his eyes again.

Jensen flinched at the realization that Frank didn’t even know what had happened to him. He hadn’t even woken up post augmentation to find out he’d been augmented. What had they done to him? Jensen closed his eyes behind lenses and shushed Pritchard. “Come on, we’re getting out of here. Faridah’s waiting on us. We aren’t leaving you behind.”

“It’s really cold.” Pritchard’s voice lagged off.

 Jensen frowned at the obvious symptom of the fever as the tech shivered and pulled off his coat, forgetting the one folded up in it and draped it over the tech before moving to the side, sliding his arms under Franks’s legs and torso, lifting up the man with ease as the tech closed his eyes, his shivering getting worse. 

This would be tricky for fighting, but with luck, he could cloak and stealth around any sort of patrol they met up with. It was like this that he noticed how shallow the tech’s breathing was getting.

He needed to hurry up, and quickly activated the infolink with his shoulder. “Faridah, I’ll meet up with you in less then ten minutes. We need to hurry back to Detroit. Can Sarif meet us at a hospital or LiMB clinic?” He started a light jog to the door, trying not to jostle Pritchard. Though it was variable if the guy would even notice.

“I don’t even know if the boss is up.” She said.

“Well, try. If not, we’ll have to wait around for care and to be honest, I don’t think Pritchard will last much longer without medical help. He’s got a high and rising temperature and his breathing keeps getting worse. He was lucid for a bit, but I don’t think I’ll get any response out of him now.” He let the door open and continued into the hall, letting the alarm blare become 

He could hear Faridah draw in a sharp breath. “How bad is it?” She asked, her voice failing her. 

He looked down at the pale man in his arms. “He’s lost a lot of weight. Has a fever. He’s…” He took a breath and tried to get the words out as he took a corner. He was getting closer to the holding cells. He didn’t see any patrols on his HUD’s radar. “They augmented him, Faridah, as I said. But, badly. He was strapped into this machine and he’s been out of it for a while. He didn’t even know he was augmented.” 

“Oh god.” She said, quietly. “They experimented on him?”

“Yes. And worse, Megan was here. This was based off the Hyron. I told you about the Hyron a while ago.” He kicked open the door to the cells and turned on his cloak. He took a breath of relief as the cloak covered Pritchard as well. That had been something he wasn’t sure of working. It covered his clothes, weapons and his coat, but Pritchard was much larger then a jacket. “You know how bad it was.”

“Wait. Reed?!” Faridah loudly said something Adam didn’t understand before continuing. “You’re kidding me?” He ran down the holding area with ease and kicked open the next door.

“I could only wish. Megan was here, Faridah. This entire thing. She saw it.” He took a turn. He should be nearing the guard post he’d started from about now. The entire journey was faster now that he wasn’t fighting patrols or shooting cameras.

“I… Oh god.” 

There was a series of beeps he could hear over the alarm and he paused at the corner and looked around, clutching Pritchard tightly. “Shit, robots.” Jensen muttered. He’d seen the closed holding doors, even when the alarms had started. There’d been a vain hope that they’d stay closed. 

He crouched and used his legs to keep Frank steady with one arm as he pulled an EMP from his ammo clips and activated it, tossing it around the corner, waiting for the explosion.

There was the agonized scream of the bot as it exploded. He hoped he wouldn’t encounter more as he got up and continued on, his jogging getting faster as he felt his batteries draining, passing by the guard station.

“Jensen, are you almost out of there? I can hear trucks pulling up from where I am in the trees.”

“I think I am, Faridah. I can’t hear them, but I better get out before they get here. I can’t fight with Pritchard like this.”

“You’re carrying him?”

“What do you think? He’s passed out and I doubt he could walk. He couldn’t even get his legs under him when he was lucid.” He looked forward down the hall he’d turned into. The door was close. “I think I’m almost there. Did you get Sarif on the line?”

“I tried. I got Athene and she set us up at the LiMB for an emergency drop. If it’s really bad, Jensen, they’ll take him to the hospital from there.” He kicked the door down just as the cloak dropped.

He stood in front of a group of armed Dynacore troops.

Everything blurred as he bolted and tried to find cover, waiting for the first battery to recharge as they worked on aiming.

It was behind a small column that he found the time to take a breath. His first battery was almost full. It wasn’t much, but with luck he’d get down to a thick part of trees before it shorted out.

God, he hoped they didn’t find Faridah. He could hear the bullets ricochet off the concrete as he waited for the charging to finish. He made sure to fold Pritchard in more, the man’s head lulling to one side.

The moment he felt the alert in his HUD that the first battery was full, he activated the cloak, the orange shimmer surrounding both him and Pritchard until they were invisible.

He bolted. Down the gravel and asphalt until he hit the grass and soon the trees. He ran through the foliage, trying to find where Faridah and he’d landed earlier.

The battery ran out as he skid into an open field. He saw the open cargo bay and jogged into it, placing Francis haphazardly into a seat to pull down the hatch.

“We need to get going, Faridah! Dynacore troops met us at the door. We shouldn’t stick around much longer.” He shouted, forgetting the infolink.

“Got it, Adam. Get belted in, I’m going to be going as fast as I can.” Her voice came from the speaker in the VTOL and the infolink. With his hands free, he finally switched it off. He slid into a seat next to the tech and quickly belted himself in.

There was a small agonized groan from Pritchard as the VTOL started up and Jensen leaned over to belt the man in. It’d just be more agony to end up on the floor of the aircraft. 

It was a few moments of silence before Faridah spoke up. “How is he doing, Jensen? We’re almost to Michigan.”

“He’s quiet, and with Pritchard, that is a worrying sign. He said he was cold right before we left the lab he was in, then passed out when I started carrying him.”

“God. I doubt they’ve been taking care of him at all. He sounds like he’s been treated more like a rock then a lab rat. Lab rats get taken care of.” 

“Yeah. There was another prisoner, a girl in the cells. She knew Francis, apparently, and looked just as bad, sans augments. I don’t know who was running this place, but they’re inhuman. The fact that the scientists, that…” He trailed off.

“Megan?” Faridah said, filling it in. “Yeah, it’s hard to see Dr. Reed standing for this, honestly.”

“I don’t understand how she could of. The Reed I knew would of ripped through them yelling about proper care and how it effects results. Also how inhumane the entire thing is, but after Hyron, I doubt she cares.” Adam said, sighing and laying back in the seat. The entire thing was awful, and Megan being involved made it even worse.

“Yeah. We’re a few minutes away from Detroit. Athena just told me she roused Sarif and between him being this close at yelling at us and being relieved, he’s going to meet us at the LiMB clinic. Said something about keeping this under wraps. He’s working on clearing the missing person’s report quietly and wants you to report to him after the doctors get Frank.”

Adam switched off the lenses. “A report? What does he want to know? How goddamn awful that entire lab is?” His voice rose. “How much pain Pritchard’s probably in? How many people they killed for the sake of scientific progress? Really, what could he get out of a report from me right now.” He said, grousing at the idea. God, he didn’t even want to think about the other 36 people who died. He could barely think about what the two who hopefully would survive what they went through. “I can give him two e-books that I grabbed from the lab. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“E-books?” She questioned. “Alright, we’re gonna land in about a minutes.”

He prepped for landing. At least with Faridah, her piloting and landing was more stable then her driving and parking. “They’re more like lab notes, but it’s what I have.”

“Ah.” There was a pause as he felt the VTOL touch the ground. “I see them waiting. I’ll meet you outside, Jensen.” The cargo bay doors opened with the usual sound

He removed himself from the seat and unbuckled Francis, touching the man’s head agin before picking him up. His fever had gotten higher. 

In another place, a man sat at his desk, suit slightly crumpled, red hair combed back, but parts of it were sticking up. “Ah, yes. Doctor Reed. I assume you’re wondering why I called you up here?”

Megan entered the room from where she’d been standing in the door frame, hands holding an e-book. “Yes sir.”

He motioned her to a seat. “I’ve said it many times before, please, call me Bob. But yes, I called you up here to discuss a sensitive matter that involves one of the projects you just very recently visited.”


	9. Chapter 9

David Sarif would call the last three weeks many things. A mess, a catastrophe, a wild goose chase, and irritating, certainly came to mind. With their head of cyber security missing, besides everything falling around their ears, there was this reminder of the last year imbedded into it. 

Employees don’t just go missing. Heads of departments especially. And out of all of them, it was Frank, who had access to almost everything in Sarif Industries. He’d been worried for weeks that it was a group out to get Sarif Industries, and now, while he was thankful it wasn’t, there were worse things to deal with. 

He knew exactly how bad it was going to be when he saw Frank being carried out of the VTOL by Jensen, the head of security almost sprinting to the doctors. The easy part was done, Sarif guessed. Finding and bringing the hacker home. The hard part would be helping him heal. Francis wouldn’t be up to coming back for at least a year, or more even. He might never be able to work again. Sarif shook his head, and hoped he wouldn’t have to replace one of the most reliable employees he had.

They’d found him. And something in her gut said that that was the easy part.

They weren’t allowed into the room for the time being, so instead, Jensen and Malik had camped out in chairs nearby, the spy half asleep from exhaustion and bloody, refusing medical attention from various nurses, stating that most of the blood wasn’t his. He did however, accept a towel to clean off his face since he was apparently ‘scaring some of the people passing them’ before slowly nodding off, his head ending up on Faridah’s shoulder. Like the times he’d fallen asleep during movie night, he snored when sleeping sitting up.

The entire not being allowed in the room thing, Faridah figured, was to be expected. Her first glance of Francis as Jensen carried him out and the doctors scrambled to him with the gurney was of someone she could barely recognize as her sarcastic neighbor. 

He’d looked awful. Even that one time Pritchard had caught the flu and had laid on her couch for four days which he’d spent whining, sleeping, and teaching her how to make chicken soup by explaining what to do as he laid there, trying not to throw up, he hadn’t looked as ill as he had in Jensen’s arms. 

That chicken soup was still the only thing she could cook, and Pritchard had promised to teach her more, but they’d never gotten around to it. They might never get around to it, now. 

She frowned and pushed up off the chair, Jensen not waking up, ending up slightly more tilted, his retrieved jacket draped across his lap as he fell more to the right.

 It wouldn’t do any good if she just sat there, moping about the past. She needed to move. Clear her head, get out the cobwebs, and stop worrying.

The hallway was not quiet, but the buzz of thought in her head kept her from hearing the clatter around her. It was only by luck that she avoided crashing into people or carts. For once since Panchaea, Faridah Malik did not know what to do.

During the last year, she’d had a relatively normal existence. There was work to do, Sarif Industries ever growing and expanding at a good pace. She’d flown all over the world for meetings and deliveries. There had been parties and events and that one time she’d been dragged to an opera with the boys for information gathering as a cover. There had been dates, breakups, and getting drunk while playing video games. There had been nights of takeout and booze and also nights in weird dives laughing and most commonly, nights in the office, arguing and joking.

They’d lived like normal people. 

She’d even had a fist fight with Pritchard one night, right after she’d had a bad day. He’d broken something that she couldn’t really remember, and wasn’t going to pay her back, so she’d punched him in the face and it went from there. If Jensen hadn’t walked in with the food he’d said he’d pick up for movie night, there would have been more then just a few bruises and a black eye. But they’d made up and apologized for acting like kids and he brought her coffee as an apology the next day, and she left him a bag of candy for giving him a black eye. Soft caramels, one of his favourites, not that he’d ever admit it. 

This had thrown all of that normality in her face. 

Everything was a mess. Three weeks of searching for Frank, to find him in a machine that Jensen described to be like the Hyron. All it did was erase what normality had gone on. Knowing that Megan had been in on it made it worse. It felt like they’d taken that normal year away from her, since everything now seemed to dredge up the long string of missions that she’d seen and almost died during. She didn’t want to go back there, didn’t want to remember it. She didn’t want to think about Hengsha and the crash or Panchaea and the fear.

She’d walked in a full circle around the floor lost in thought, not noticing the creak of a door opening.

“You’re one of the people who are waiting for news on Mr. Pritchard, aren’t you?” The words startled Faridah. She looked up to the face of a older woman in scrubs and a lab coat. Mr. Pritchard sounded so odd to her. He was Pritchard, maybe Frank or Francis, sometimes dumb-ass, but never Mister. “You can go in now. He’s not going to be up for a while, but we’ve been able to control his fever. Besides infection, he’s had a severe glial tissue build up, but from what we can tell, it had halted and the resulting fever was from what was there and the infection around his augmentations.”

Faridah nodded and started to walk to Jensen to shove him awake before turning back. “What will you do about the augments?” She asked, facing the doctor. Were they going to just replace them? She considered this. They were awful enough to replace.

“That’s for Mr. Pritchard to decide once he wakes up. The augments may be cheep and poorly installed, but with the condition he’s in now, I doubt replacing them would be in his best interests unless he gives the go ahead.” Faridah nodded, it made sense, and turned back to Adam.

Still snoring, the man had dropped his coat and was sprawled across the two chairs. If it wasn’t for the bullet holes and combat armor, Faridah would of called it vaguely adorable. Not that she’d admit that. Or say it out loud.

With a steady hand, she prodded his shoulder. “Spyboy, wake up. We can visit now.” She said, her voice low. “He’s not awake, but we’re allowed in the room.” 

There was a sleepy groan and Malik backed off, crossing her arms as Jensen sat up and stretched, rolling his neck. “Really?” He muttered, letting the lenses snap open. “He’s okay then.”

“I guess. He’s stable for now, but any sort of work on those augmentations needs to be decided by him.” 

He nodded as he bent to pick up the coat, hanging it over his right arm before standing up. “Better that way. He’s already been through…” He trailed off as they moved to the door before taking a breath before speaking. “Forced augmentation. He should decide for himself, this time.” Malik knew the weight of his words. It was the same really, things that both Adam and Francis never asked for. Choice was now something Adam held dearly, and now someone else had been put through the same sort of thing, someone else that he cared for, he was taking it hard.

She nodded in understanding as they stepped into the room, the steady sound of a heart monitor going. Her teeth clenched as they walked towards the tech. He’d been cleaned up, and some of the color had returned to his cheeks, but he still looked like death. 

She’d seen him without a shirt plenty of times. She was used to the fact that he’d always been lanky. This was not lanky. She could count his ribs. She could see the bones in his upper arms. She could make out his cheekbones. This was starvation, this was what torture they’d put him through. Every single thing they’d done to him, showed on his body.

Tears pooled in her eyes as she brushed his now short hair back, and she sniffed, trying to hold them back. It wasn’t fair that this had happened to Francis. It wasn’t right. He was suppose to be the one they knew would be safe, no matter what happened to them. 

Faridah was broken out of her train of thoughts by a tissue being offered in her face, a hand on her shoulder. She turned to look at the head of security, taking the tissue.

“He’s safe, Malik. He’s going to get better.” There might have been a firmness to Adam’s words, an exactness that was lost by the own expression on his face, lenses withdrawn, there was doubt in his eyes.

She sighed and stepped to the left, letting Adam’s hand fall from her shoulder. “Still, this isn’t fair.”

A rough laugh, bitter sounding. “Life’s never fair, Faridah. We both know that.”

She nodded. “I know. Still…” She trailed off, walking to one of the chairs near the bed, sitting down with a grimace. Yep, still the same chairs as outside the room, just as uncomfortable. 

Adam closed his eyes, quiet words on his lips, as he too ruffled Francis’s now short hair. Faridah couldn’t make out what he was saying to Pritchard, and gave a questioning look as he too sat down. The man was silent, however, as he settled down.

The question of ‘what now’ loomed in the silence, as they listened to the steady pulse of the heart monitor, falling asleep in the chairs, for now, content knowing their friend wasn’t dying.

The room filled with small things, cards, flowers, small gifts and well wishes, over the week he was still out of it. Days were passed between work and the quiet hospital room, the only time not spent there or on the roads was for short showers and changing clothes. They didn’t speak much, no words needed as they held watch, a vigil over their technician.

While he did not wake, he looked better with every passing day, color returning to his skin. 

It was Thursday. The sun was setting, and the room was tinted red by the fading light, Faridah dosing in the chair that had slowly become hers through the week. Adam stood by the window, watching the usual bustle of Detroit at sunset. 

There was a small noise from the bed, a groan, that broke the silence. It made both spy and pilot jump. “Wh-” The voice was raspy, a cough breaking the words. “Where am I?” 

Adam was the first to respond, quickly walking to the bed as Faridah got up. “You’re safe, Pritchard. You’re in a hospital. You’re safe.”

There was a nod as Faridah got to the bedside, biting her lip as she saw the steel eyes for the first time, the twisting and turning to pull her into focus. They were so different from before. “Hey, bright-boy.” She said, feeling tears gather in her eyes again, holding them back with a smile. 

He blinked, a bad smile forcing it’s way on to his face, almost a grimace. It was so out of character, so strange to see, Malik choked back her tears more. “Hey, flygirl.” Was chocked out of Francis’s mouth. “You’ve seen better days.” The snark was customary.

“Speak for yourself.” She said, feeling the tears slip down her cheeks. “You… you idiot.” There was fondness in her voice. “You stupid idiot. I’m so fucking glad you’re alive.”

There was silence, but for once, the room felt a bit less stifling. 

There was hope. 

“I’m not too sure I agree with that.” Francis muttered, struggling to sit up before giving up. “I can’t feel my arms.”

Adam looked away, “I’m sorry.” 

Francis craned his neck to look down at his arms and flinched, looking away. “Oh.” He bit his lip. “Could I be alone for a bit?” He asked, laying his head back down, despair in his eyes

“Yeah, sure.” Adam looked back at Francis, an understanding look on his face. “Frank, you’ll be alright.” He reassured, before walking out of the room. 

Faridah hovered for a second. “Malik…” He turned his head to look at the pilot. 

She nodded. “Francis, we’ll get through this. Don’t worry.” She said, before leaving the room, seeing Adam standing next to it.

“Adam…” She looked at Adam, his eyes covered by his glasses. Even in the dim lighting, she could see the distress on his face.

“I know exactly what he’s going through.” He muttered, bringing an augmented hand up to his face. “It’s not…”

“Going to be pretty. I know.” She sighed. “Come on, spyboy. Let’s let him have some time alone. Let’s both get some sleep in places that isn’t those chairs. We’ll check on him in the morning. He’ll be fine. I’ll drop you off at your place.”

He nodded, and in silence, they walked to the parking lot.

Pritchard stared at the ceiling, turning over everything in his head. Augments. He’d been augmented. His body ached, all he could remember was the time in the cells, and the hands. Hands and pain.

Was that what it was? Did he wake up during the operations? 

‘I’ll get you out of here.’ The words were in his head, but he didn’t remember who said them or why. The voice he could almost hear, but still, nothing. 

He looked back at his new hands and wanted to yell about them. They were disgusting, he couldn’t even move them. They hurt so much. Tightly closing his eyes, he hoped this all was just a bad dream. If he’d just wake up, all himself, even if he was still in that cell, it’d be preferable. 

His back ached too, and he couldn’t even feel his feet. Just how much had been done? 

Tears finally came, and alone, in the hospital room, he cried for the first time in years, mourning himself. 

Everything ached, and he closed his eyes and fell into sleep, hands and the words haunting him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has taken a while, and a lot of that was due to my own hospitalization so when I was back, it was hard to write this. However, until the end of this story hopefully I'll be on a every week update or every two week update from now on!


	10. Chapter 10

“I think I’m ready to replace these.” Pritchard gestured to his arms, the motion jerky as he lifted the bulky prototypes up, still siting in the hospital bed. “Doctor Marcovic seems to think that I’m in good enough condition to have the surgery. Don’t give me that look, Faridah.” He looked at the pilot. “I want to get out of here. I need to be able to walk again. They just need to replace a spinal disk in my back and new arms so I can actually move.”

“What about the rest of that?” She muttered, head in hands. “All of the organ replacement mess.”

He looked away, a grimace on his face. “They think it’ll be about a year before I’m even healthy enough to attempt that. Want me to gain weight back, hopefully nothing that’s in me will go wrong before then.”

Faridah nodded, tired of the conversation before it even really began. It wasn’t Frank’s fault, but she was overtired, and this emotionally draining conversation had happened before. “So, you’re going to talk that over tonight with your doctor?”

There was a nod as he looked back to Faridah. “Yeah. Sarif’s already said that he’s made sure there were properly designed arms waiting for me. Said something about them being a modified civilian model. I don’t really care at this point.” A dejected sigh came from Francis. “I just want to go home.”

“I know, Frank.” 

“I still have therapy to go through. I don’t even want to do that. I just want to sleep.” He muttered, looking down at the blanket. “Pretend this was all just some bad dream.”

“I wish it was too.” Faridah really didn’t know how she was suppose to react. This wasn’t how she knew Francis. They were friends, yes. Good friends, surprisingly. But this didn’t feel like the Pritchard she’d known as her neighbor. There had been less snark, less biting words. He’d been almost a different person, the entire time he’d been here.

It worried her. 

“Jensen said something about how he’d help me relearn writing again. I don’t know if I really want him to see me struggle with picking up a fucking pencil.” He sighed, despondent. Well, that was a bit more familiar, at least. 

She shook her head. “He isn’t going to think less of you, idiot. He’s been in the same place.” She reached over and poked his cheek. “He wants to help you. You’re his friend, despite all of the fucking fake animosity you two display.”

He looked away, glancing out the window to his right. “Still…” He trailed off, hands struggling to move in the blanket. “Anyway, how’s work?” He asked, ducking out of the conversation first. 

“Fine. Hannah’s been getting stuff cleaned up. That girl is brilliant, but wow have we underestimated what your workload actually is for years.” She said, attempting to show him a smile. “Everyone actually misses you, you know. The office isn’t the same without you and Jensen arguing.”

He scoffed. “I doubt that much, Faridah. But I’m glad you guys are starting to see just how much I do.” He sounded sardonic as he said this, not really meeting Faridah’s eyes, a half-hearted smirk on his face. It hurt to look at.

“Believe me, we miss you.” She gestured to the cards on the small table. 

There was a bitter laugh as the door opened, a nurse cutting in. “Miss Malik, I think Mr. Pritchard’s visiting hours are over.” 

She nodded, getting up from the chair, putting her hand on his shoulder. “Get some rest Frank. I’ll see you tomorrow. Maybe sneak you in some coffee or candy or something.” She smiled. 

Pritchard nodded, finally meeting her eyes. “See you, Faridah.” He said, “And, thanks.” He muttered under his breath.

There was a wave, a rather pathetic one, yes, but a wave none the less, when Adam showed up the next night. “Jensen.” Was the typical greeting.

“Francis.” The typical reply, in response. “New arms?” He gestured to augments, that had already proven to be more mobile with the wave. 

“Yeah. Marcovic and I talked last night after Malik left, and it happened this morning. Tomorrow they’ll deal with the eye implants and in a few more days, there will be the spinal implant. Then rehab for a week, she thinks, and I can finally head home.” 

The head of security pulled a chair over and sat down, pulling something from his pockets. “Well, that’s good. Better having an actual date to head home then just floundering for a while.” He said, handing over the package. “Malik sent this, she’ll try to pop by later but she had to go pick an important prototype up.” Adam looks over the tech, noting his sullen posture, slightly hunched over, pulled together as well as he could with paralyzed legs. Jensen had a feeling that if Pritchard could move them, he’d just have curled up.

Defensive, unsure, scared. Words he wasn’t particularly used to putting to Francis, but with dread, he noticed how much more common they were becoming. But they were what he saw now, almost daily. And, it was to be expected. 

So they sat, in silence. There wasn’t much they could talk about, that didn’t go into things that were best left unsaid for now. Which, sadly, were most of the things they could talk about. But, it was nice to just sit, no matter how uneasy the hospital made him, sitting here reminded Jensen that they’d actually found their friend.

Hannah sat back in her chair, staring at her desktop. Finally. She was finally done. The security system was updated, she’d checked the servers for issues, and she’d reminded everyone that the computers were for work use only. God, if she found another virus on an intern’s laptop, she was going to hit them over the head with the damn thing. How hard was it to not play shifty online games? Apparently very hard.

Between being forced to go home and sleep by her boyfriend, and doing all the work she finally had access too, she hadn’t had time to go see Frank. She’d sent things with Jensen and Malik, but she wasn’t sure of the tech’s condition still.

If it wasn’t for Pritchard, she’d be in jail. She snagged her bag and coat and walked to the elevator, remembering that day. God, she thought she’d be so cool when she’d started fucking around in Sarif Industries, trying to be a big shot hacker. She’d wanted to prove to the rest of the world, to everyone who’d ever faulted her, that she was better, that she could do it.

She’d exposed a unknown hole in the security though, so she’d done something right, she guessed. Something that the older hacker saw in her was worthwhile, and he petitioned the boss to hire her, instead. 

If Pritchard hadn’t mentioned that, she’d have been in jail, and knowing how the police system worked, for a long time at Sarif’s discretion. 

She pressed the button to get to the parking garage and exhaled. Pritchard had done a lot of her, which was surprising, considering how he was to everyone. But, he valued good work, and good work was something she excelled at doing.

Frank had in a way, been one of the few people at Sarif Industries who’d believed in her at first. She was gangly, awkward, still a bit into places she shouldn’t of been and wasn’t the most graceful member of the team. Frank though, in his pointed manner, had told her that she had a chance, that she’d be a good addition to the team, she just needed to work, and prove everyone else wrong. 

And he was right. She’d become his second in a few years, she’d gotten clean, she’d even gotten to be well off enough she could provide for her little brother.

She climbed into her car, and started it up, hand finding the wrapped gift she’d gotten for the tech before moving back to the steering wheel. Nothing spectacular, but, she hoped the movie would cheer him up.

It was something he could use in a hospital. She’d heard he wasn’t his normal self from the other two, worry crossing Faridah’s face, and an unsureness in Jensen’s. 

She hadn’t know them long enough to make a decision about Pritchard’s health from those expressions, but it was something to base an idea off of.

And as she moved out of the parking lot, Hannah hoped she could help someone she considered as close to a friend as she could.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, it's not fantastic, but, I'm getting back into the swing of things. I'm almost done with chapter 11, then we get into the final bit of the story. Thank you all for reading this.


	11. Chapter 11

The night air is cool, and it smells like car fumes and metal, and for once, Pritchard is thankful for it. It’s so, so Detroit. The roof feels more like home then anything else has in the last week. Three weeks. Three more weeks in that godforsaken hospital, when he’d only been expecting one. Trying to relearn basic thing, like writing and walking, and every time he failed, he felt like he was a useless waste of space and energy, a broken human. If, he’d mused, he was really human anymore. He certainly didn’t feel like one.

And his home. His little apartment, cramped and filled with electronics and bike parts. It didn’t feel right. He stumbled into his desk a few nights ago, adding a new bruise to his already mangled body. His clothing was too big. He swam in most of his clothing, looking more gaunt then he was already. It was so strange, to look in a mirror. His eyes were now blue, again, but it looked artificial and eerie. Everything ached, and he just wanted to forget everything, but his apartment always just reminded him of everything that had happened. How he changed.

His apartment was still a mess, the floor of his bedroom littered with clothing he couldn’t wear as it was too loose, too big. The kitchen had pans that hadn’t been put away, the living room covered in computer parts and tools from a project that he’d never finish now. It wasn’t home anymore. Things that did not feel like his own anymore, laid about. It was if he was intruding into someone else’s home.

On the roof, however, he was just no one. He could forget. 

It didn’t help that Malik and Jensen were always making sure he was alright. He didn’t want to think about how he felt. Or tell them how worthless he is now that they’d destroyed so much of him. How pathetic he felt, waking up in the middle of the night, the taste of antiseptic and feeling like death.

Nightmares were for children, he told himself, and he hadn’t had one since he was 17, and that was when he got tossed out of his home. Since then, he’d dreamt of nothing, and that had suited Pritchard just fine. He wasn’t a child anymore, and waking up frozen in a cold sweat certainly made him feel small now.

It was always the same, one of the two. A cold metal room, knives, murmuring voices, an incision, and that familiar voice going “I’m sorry. If I can do it, Pritchard, I’ll get you out of here.” Or, the cells, empty, a voice, Kay’s voice screaming, and he was just trapped in the little cell.

His bed was tainted with the feeling that he wasn’t even himself anymore. His safety net, his own place, was long gone. 

He didn’t want to disappoint or worry the two people that seemed to care for him. He didn’t know how they could, back then, but especially now. He wasn’t anything worth caring for. He was wrong.

It was up here, alone, in the middle of the night, that there was nothing wrong with him. That he wasn’t a victim of augment experimentation. That he’d never even heard of the Perdix Project. 

Here, he was alright. He was no one.

The peacefulness was broken as the door creaked open. “Pritch, you up here?” Malik called into the darkness, and silently, the former tech raised a hand and waved at her, from his position of laying on the roof, looking at the yellow smog filled sky. “You know, you really should get some rest…” She quietly suggested, giving him a worried look. “You have bags under your eyes again. It’s not good for you.”

“Nothing’s good for me, Malik.” He grumbled, working to get up. He didn’t voice the other thought in his head. That he might as well be dead. 

Faridah watched as he stumbled up and back to the roof’s door. Not following, just keeping an eye on. She knew not to smother him, or at least, try not to, but the urge to just sit him down and make sure he was alright was a hard one to ignore. An empty roof, a dark night, it just spoke of trouble.

She kept telling herself she had to let him heal. 

Faridah sighed. She really needed a midnight ride. It was just so much to deal with. The aftermath, watching someone she always felt was a sturdy, but slightly unreliable person to lean on just break and hide away. Which, Malik reasoned, was a understandable response. But they had to drag him to therapy and every other appointment he had. He just wasn’t even trying.

And there was nothing she could do about it. You could pull a man from hell, but if he didn’t want to live, he wouldn’t.

And it hurt, damnit. Every time she looked at him, sickly looking and a far off expression. He had barely touched his computers or really, anything. He was more likely to find asleep on his couch, a giant looking sweater and a pair of baggy pants on, a bottle of sleep aids on the table. Or on the roof. 

As soon as she was sure he wasn’t nearby, she walked back down to her place to grab her keys to the bike, and a helmet. 

It was the only way to quiet the racing thoughts. 

This entire… disaster, had shaken everything up again. She was terrified she’d lose someone again. It came with nightmares. Nightmares of the crash in Hengsha, of the chaos from Panchea. Seeing not just her friends, but her family, dead. Worst was when she saw herself, dead on the floor. Sometimes, someone was hovering over her, crying. Pritchard, sometimes, Adam, more then once, but more often, it was her father. The man who’d called her a shocking surprise, and taught her about computers. The man who played co-op with her in first person shooters when she was little. The worst though, was her mother. Who chided her for banging up her knees but always patched her up. Who listened to her woes and gave her advice, telling her to be safe.

She’d cry whenever she woke up from one of those. 

The air ruffling her short jacket, she sped the bike up. Tonight, traffic was light, so she went as fast as she could. Past police cruisers and parked cars, empty, vacant lots and bustling shops.

The sound of the wind started to blow the thoughts from her mind as she focused solely on the road. Yellow lines blurring, red lights, green lights, she didn’t care. 

As she slowed down to stop for a stop sign, she wondered if maybe she should go back to kickboxing class. The energy, the fact she used to only focus on the fight, sweat dripping down her back. 

She missed one of her old hobbies, but this had kept her blood pumping for a while. She sighed as she started off again. That could wait. For now, this was the best she could do.

Jensen worked slowly on the latest clock he’d found, slowly replacing old worn gears with newer ones. The delicate work was good for clearing his mind.

There was a lot to not think about. He’d been reviewing all of the logs they had from the facility, and it was awful to see how little care they had for human life.

If it wasn’t for needing to be here, in Detroit, not just for work, but to help Francis, he’d have gone back and made sure that the facility was destroyed.

But right now, he’d rather be here. Despite the pens being tossed at him in anger and frustration, he was getting somewhere with helping Pritchard get used to writing again. The tech was stubborn, but had finally relented, and while it wasn’t easy, it was good to see some form of improvement. Pritchard hadn’t looked better since being released from the hospital. 

His bite hadn’t returned much. It was odd, the tech not having a witty comment for anything unimportant said to him. He seemed almost lifeless without it. It wasn’t like Francis to be without his snark and fake dislike. 

Jensen certainly had an idea of how Frank felt, but while it was similar to what he had gone through, it also was an entirely different animal. He hadn’t been put through starvation before being augmented. He hadn’t been kidnapped and held captive, used as a part of a machine.

He still didn’t know what Pritchard had gone through before being augmented, and somehow, he’d rather not know. He had his assumption based on the other subject he’d saved, but it was better not knowing.

There was something bugging him though. He put down his screwdriver and looked out the window across Detroit in all it’s nighttime glory, smoke and fires, glowing, almost too harsh lights, and the traffic moving. Something hadn’t seemed right in the last few days.

Maybe it was just the fact that while Pritchard was back, safe, and home, Hannah was still the one currently in charge. She was really, really quite good. Efficient, good with people, very much a workaholic as much as Frank had been, to boot. But it was odd to not have the typical snark filled banter in the morning, yet also not being totally worried about the technician.

Maybe he just needed an actual night of rest.

The chair squeaked as Adam pushed it back, getting up from his work table. His feet left no sound as he walked into his own bedroom, trying to empty his head.

Megan Reed glowered at the last person left from the original Perdix Project. After she’d been found out, the young intern, Rose, had told Page about the entire mess that was her bosses handling of the research, saying that they’d not brought the proper team to work, sighting the useless waste of resources and valuable time spent on all the subjects.

Page, with a glare at Megan as she sat stoney still in her chair in his huge office, had told Megan she was going to be relocated to Ohio, indefinitely. 

Something in her said that the look in his eyes meant until she died. His cold, red eyes haunted her as she slept, in a makeshift room in the facility, on a cot too small for anyone.

Rose, for all her bravado, hadn’t been made head of the project. She had. With a price. If she couldn’t get the project up and running within the year, and either help create a new subject, find the former one, find Francis, she quietly reminded herself, was not an option, or become the subject herself.

Megan’s eyes were bloodshot, and her hair disheveled. This was her penance, in a way, she decided. For what she’d done before, for what she’d helped develop. The resolve in her mind was to never, ever, help the development of this monstrous project.

One had been enough.

But she made it look like she was busy, researching problems and ‘fixing’ them. It was better then nothing, at this point.

A squeak of the chair. Warm breath on her ear, “I hope you’ve found where our dear subject is, Dr Reed.” The happy falsetto of an american Rose. The young intern was right over her, and in a way, she’d become her keeper. “But, then… again, if you haven’t… we have!” Her voice was like nails on a chalkboard as she said that. A chill ran down Megan’s spine. 

The door shut, and Megan was left in her little cell. She put her head in her hands, and a ragged sob escaped her. It was failure, again, another failure, and the tears rolled down her cheeks. 

When a guard came to escort her to a laboratory, she didn’t resist. Head down, she drug her feet, but kept up. She’d wiped away her tears before walking through the doors.

She wouldn’t let Rose feel the satisfaction of breaking her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, yeah, we're getting there! Chapter 11 I had finished before chapter 10... ha... well, Perdix is almost done. Still got some stuff up my sleeve, though!
> 
> Also, if you like my writing, request stuff at br4v3b1rd.tumblr.com!


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